Sam Reich isn’t expecting an Emmy nomination this year. He doesn’t think he’ll lose either.
For Dropout’s CEO, the indie comedy streamer’s first FYC event at the iconic Laugh Factory never meant a single outcome. That meant entering the room.
“All we’re trying to do is get a little bit better every year,” Reich told Variety.
The venue seats approximately 150 people. Dropout has over 900 RSVP lists. But the biggest surprise of the night wasn’t the turnout. Former Dance Moms doyenne Abby Lee Miller made an appearance.
Alison Rabelo of Westhouse
“She said she was a fan of ‘Game Changers,'” Reich says. “I almost fell out of the bathtub when I told my wife Elaine that I was coming.”
The balance between intimacy and ambition is at the heart of Dropout’s current moment. With 11 Emmy nominations spanning “Game Changers” and “Very Important People,” Reich is running a modest campaign in an environment dominated by multibillion-dollar media companies.
“Streamers are trying to be everything to everyone,” Reich said. “We’re all about being good, and if you’re paying $7 a month for Dropout, you’re probably passionate about us.”
That loyalty helped make “Very important People” one of the platform’s signature shows. Hosted by comedian Vic Michaelis, this prosthetics-centric interview series is filled with improvisation and absurdist character work. Season 3 featured the main cast of Dropouts, including Frankie Quinones and Chelsea Peretti.
Reich said Michaelis has very rare comedic skills, describing him as “someone who is straight and funny at the same time, which I’ve never seen in any other comic before.”
This hilarious show enters the revamped and outstanding variety series race at a time when the Television Academy is increasingly opening up to Internet-native programming. Reich points to creators like “Hot Ones” creators Shaun Evans, Brittany Brosky and Michelle Carre as part of the same broader movement. A breakthrough for any of them, he argues, will benefit all digital creators looking to enter the traditional awards space.
Nevertheless, for Reich, the Emmy push also serves as a larger branding exercise. As he explains, Dropout is evolving, moving from “unscripted alternative comedy” to just “alternative comedy,” with ambitions that could eventually extend to “Dimension 20,” a flagship series inspired by animation, horror, and scripted storytelling, particularly Dungeons and Dragons.
“We’ve been broadly or vaguely threatening an animated version of Dimension 20 for some time,” he teases about the tabletop RPG comedy show hosted by fan favorite and game master Brennan Lee Mulligan. “Right now, we have some irons that are going from ‘moderate’ to far in that fire. ”
Still, Reich resists anything that is considered “traditional.”
“I hope we never produce anything that we recognize, because I always hope that what we do is just a little bit avant-garde,” he says.
Kate Elliott
Kate Elliott
Most of Dropout’s Emmy hopes rest on Reich’s own competition series, Game Changers. The show’s blend of elaborate game mechanics and psychological humor has made it a cult phenomenon, especially after an episode curated by Mulligan turned the tables on Reich himself and became one of the year’s most talked about shows online.
Season 8, which premiered in May, includes what Reich describes as some of the strongest episodes in the show’s history. “Roulette 2” revives a format he felt was too elegant to abandon, and the upcoming episode, titled “Count the Rice,” ranks among the highlights of the season in his estimation.
“If you ask me if it has something to do with counting rice, yes, it does,” Reich jokes.
He also exclusively teased to Variety a future episode titled “What’s the Catch,” which is loosely inspired by the classic game show “Let’s Make a Deal,” and said it would be a “top five” episode in series history.
And of course, there’s no way we wouldn’t talk about “Survivor,” a longtime obsession that Reich dedicated an episode to several years ago. When asked about Aubrey Bracco and her Season 50 win, he praised her timing.
“My vote for the final three was definitely Aubrey. She peaked at exactly the right time. It’s so important to the strategy that it doesn’t get any smarter any time soon.”
For comedy executives navigating their rise through the Emmy ecosystem, this observation is perfect.
