I'm gonna be real with you all for a second
I rose from the dead just to send you this newsletter. Some things are changing, including that editions will be going out every week, with a bit less in each one. Enjoy!
It's Abbott Elementary, My Dear Watson
If you’re not watching Abbott Elementary, you’re missing out on what I think is our generation’s next big sitcom. We’ve had The Office, Parks and Rec, New Girl, etc., etc., but there’s something new and fresh with this one: its sense of realism. The show was created by Quinta Brunson, who got her start on the internet through Vine and BuzzFeed, and follows a group of elementary school teachers in Phildelphia in a mockumentary style. It’s so rooted in reality that it feels real — the characters are people you know, the teachers remind you of your own — and manages to bring us humor through the innate candidness of humans, rather than exaggerated characters.
That sense of reality has been a part of Brunson’s creation since the beginning. The writer-creator has said time and time again that the show was largely inspired by her mother, an elementary teacher of 40 years. Brunson actively gets ideas for the show from her mother’s real-life stories. “I would check in with her and ask, ‘Does this sound like something relatable to you?’ And she’d say, ‘Oh yeah!’” Brunson told TV Insider.
That realness permeates every part of the show. Take the main characters: Each one is three-dimensional, with their own clear backstories, interests, quirks, and lives outside the school (and the camera). Sure, they may be lightly based on tropes — the strict elder, the straight man, the slightly sketchy but lovable one, the old janitor — but the characters built around them are anything but stereotypical.
Pulling from real-life experiences — of both herself and the cast — helps Brunson to create that depth and candidness that’s necessary to create rounded, dynamic characters. “A small part of my goal with this show, other than to make people laugh, was to elaborate that, look, these people have lives,” Brunson told the Washington Post. “As the show goes on, we bring more of their lives into the school.”
One of the best examples is from a recent cold open, in which Barbara (Emmy-award winner Sheryl Lee Ralph) doesn’t seem to know which celebrities are white and which are Black. It’s a funny enough premise on its own, but Brunson and Ralph recently told Kelly Clarkson (on her talk show, not just, like, for fun) that it was based on a real-life quip of Ralph’s.
The candidness that Abbott manages to bring to the screen seeps into specific plots as well, like the potential something between Janine (Brunson) and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) — aka, the show’s slow-burn romance. When considering slow-burn relationships, I think it’s fair to jump to characters like Jim and Pam on The Office or Nick and Jess on New Girl. The will-they-won’t-they on Abbott is between two teachers who just can’t seem to catch each other at the right time. What makes this romance so much stronger than others is that they have their own rhythm — they’re not really flirting from the beginning(ish) like Jim and Pam, and they’re not staying completely away from each other like Nick and Jess. Janine and Gregory have something else: camaraderie and friendly care for one another.
We get to see these real-feeling, tender moments between them — things that aren’t necessarily meant to be romantic. What develops before our eyes is a real love story; two people meeting and getting to know each other, but neither expecting anything. And then, boom, something clicks between them… maybe? “We get excited writing little situations for them that have nothing to do with love,” Brunson told Variety. “We all know the attraction is there, … and you get to have moments that mean nothing to our characters but everything to our audience.”
What’s more, the obstacles keeping Janine and Gregory apart are more than the typical “Oh, we both have partners” (though they did that too); they’re more mental blocks than physical or moral ones. The thing is with sitcoms is that we’re more often focused on the humor that comes from what’s happening around the characters, rather than on the emotional, vulnerable moments. For Granine (Jegory?), sometimes things are happening in their personal life that keep them apart, like depression, existential confusion, or a sense of aloneness — and that just adds another layer of reality to the whole show. “That is the kind of reason that keeps people apart in real life: misunderstandings, fear of being vulnerable, insecurities,” writes Bookriot.
That vulnerability comes through in the titular school environment as well. Abbott doesn’t shy away from talking about the issues that underfunded schools face and the way teachers have to be heroes to make ends meet. They may need to talk to a guy about getting new rugs or try to go viral to win school supplies since the school district won’t provide them, but what Abbott does is find the silver lining — just like we do in life. While that sounds a bit depressing, the fact that Brunson is able to craft a world based on humor within those dismal conditions is as strong of evidence as you need to prove the show is something special. “Here you have this school, and people might say, 'Hey, this is sad. These people should be sad.' But they're not,” Brunson told PopSugar. “People are so resilient. People find joy. It's a human thing to do.”
Abbott’s whole slew of characters is resilient, but the show itself features a mostly Black cast, allowing Brunson to fold an honest and real perspective of Blackness into it. This is obviously not something I myself can speak on, but it’s clear that it’s a key part of what makes the show feel so genuine and honest. Plus, it manages to offer up another layer of reality that many sitcoms tend to shy away from. "It's absolutely part of what I was setting out to do," Brunson told PopSugar. "I was like, 'I really enjoy all these sitcoms where characters just get to live day to day, specifically workplace sitcoms,' … and for me, I just could not think of many workplace sitcoms with Black leads. Most of the recent ones, there is one Black person, or a Black person and another person of color in the workplace, but not predominantly. Whereas where I've come from, most of the workplaces were composed of predominantly Black people, and I wanted to reflect that. … I'm happy that people feel that, feel seen, and are enjoying watching this different version of a workplace sitcom."
Brunson has managed to craft a show that feels so rooted in reality that anyone can find something or someone to relate to in it, whether the romance, the humor, the characters, or the cultural relevance. Part of that comes from the writer-creator’s prior experience with Vine and at BuzzFeed, where she worked on viral content. “I think my experience at BuzzFeed — BuzzFeed was very for everyone, and the stuff I made was made so that anyone could relate to it and share — definitely informed a lot of my love of creating in that way,” she told the Washington Post. But the other part of it is just an honest love of storytelling that comes across in how Brunson crafts characters, storylines, and even jokes. Everything feels real, and the love that goes into crafting such a candid, fun show doesn’t go unnoticed. Abbott Elementary is a piece of art that feels like a photograph, and anyone who isn’t watching is missing out — big time.
Saturday Night Dead?
When I saw the David S. Pumpkins sketch on last week’s Saturday Night Live episode, I was just as thrilled as the rest of you. But as I smiled along to the sketch, my realization of, “Oh, that’s why Tom was there — oh, and Bobby!” quickly turned into “Wait… what?”
My confusion came about halfway into the sketch, when I realized I was watching essentially the same sketch as the 2016 one the character premiered in. Like, almost exactly. To be fair, there is the addition of a third character who’s kind of into David Pumpkins (host Jack Harlow), but other all changes are cosmetic: a re-theming of the theme park ride, additional banter, different horror characters. Otherwise, it’s the same setup, jokes, and pacing.
I need you to understand: It’s almost exactly the same. And that, honestly, is so, so disappointing.
Listen, I’m not saying writing for SNL is easy; I know that’s the opposite of the truth. But what I am saying is that there should at least be some variety in sketches where characters reappear. The show has done this well with Pumpkins in the past — like when he showed up as David S. Pimpkins or when they gave him a whole animated half-hour special — but in this year’s appearance, it seemed that the writers just copy-and-pasted the original sketch.
I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around why this could be the case. The only thing that really makes sense to me is that the sketch was decided without any thought to the fact that some people may realize it’s the same plot line — but to be honest, that’s never stopped SNL before, so maybe that’s not the case.
It’s common to see recurring characters play the same situation out over and over again on the show because it’s easy, but let’s be real: It also gets old. What keeps a character fresh is the environment they’re dropped into. Sure, former cast member Aristotle Athari’s Angelo performed the same character every time he appeared, but the character played by the host was unique each time, and since it was such a large part of the sketch, it felt just unfamiliar enough that it was intriguing and still entertaining. And yeah, you knew what Debbie Downer would do in a sketch as soon as you saw her face, but the situations they put her in were always different, and her experiences changed each time, so it felt like you were watching someone you knew in an environment you didn’t.
I know David Pumpkins is beloved — and believe me, I am a fan — but I think there’s a line that’s easily crossed when writers begin to rely on a character because it’s easy. And on SNL, specifically, sometimes easy is what you want, since, you know, you’re working like a bajillion hours a week. Plus, because of the internet age we live in, there’s a strong desire to create sketches that will capture people’s attention through a short and easily understood clip. I would assume this David Pumpkins sketch was meant to appeal to that line of thinking; it was put out as essentially a repeat because they knew people would love the character (and the cameos) and understand exactly what’s going on without having to think too much about the plot.
To me, that just feels a bit sad. David Pumpkins is such a good character, and they had been writing him so well, but this sudden addition to the canon is too familiar — it’s like how The Force Awakens is just kinda A New Hope (email me, and we can fight about it). I hope that, if we see Mr. Pumpkins again in the future, it’s in a new place or situation — or it at least has a new ending.
Any questions?
This is the column where we talk anything and everything SNL. In the past, I've sought to know why SNL still exists (and found-ish the answer), but I think the best thing to do is just to let this column breathe. If you've been with me since the beginning and have seen the many iterations, you're a real one. Thanks for hanging in there.
The Comedy Showcase
1. observational comedy alum Zach Zimmerman did his first late night set on The Late, Late Show!
2. SNL's Chris Redd was attacked outside the Comedy Cellar (he's ok!) and has since addressed the attack.
3. DeuxMoi recently released some juicy gossip about a potential late night show cancellation.