When you were first talking to Mitch about the show, what did he tell you about it?
Well, he compared it to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and those kinds of shows. I guess “The Office” as well. Those are kind of the same shows and feels. I know that a lot of the characters are loosely based on Mitch too. Like Mitch does magic, that's where he got GOB, and I think he had a cookie stand when he was a kid, which he changed to a banana stand.
Brian M. Palmer -Alia Shawkat interview
I was wondering if you guys feel like you're making this incredible show, and in a way, it's you versus FOX?
I get that feeling always when we get to times like this. When it's like, "Are we cancelled or not?" Otherwise you don't even realize it. We're just working and then all of a sudden it's like, "Whoa, wait, we really are in a battle to stay on the air. And the reason we're in a battle is because we're so different from everything else that's on the air." That's when it starts to come out. The other day Mitch [Hurwitz] came on the set and I was doing a scene with David, and Mitch was talking about how some of the people at the network were angry at him for not making the show dumber. An actual quote from one of the network executives to Mitch was, "You are trying too hard. Just stop trying so hard. We want it to be simpler." She was like, "Have you ever even tried to make it simpler?" They were angry at him for making the show too good. They were like, "You gotta dumb it down, slower pace. Have you ever tried to take out some of the storylines like we asked you to?" He was just sitting there dumbfounded, like, "What the fuck do you want me to do?" And he is the hardest working man you'll ever meet. He really is. The thing that's going to hurt me the most when the show is cancelled, is that the man won 7 Emmys, but he'll never be recognized as one of the hardest working men in Hollywood. He works all the time. He never has any breaks. The writers from season 2 quit because they had to work such crazy hours. And now we just got a fresh batch of young writers who work some god awful hours. But he actually said that the network execs were angry at him for making it too smart. I mean, we obviously know that it's different, but I'm not like, "We're above every show." It's just that we're the ones that have to fight to stay on the air, and fight to make another episode. We definitely appreciate what they give us, but we definitely have a love/hate relationship with FOX. I feel bad because I always make fun of FOX, how it's all made up of reality shows and "Prison Break," but I don't know. I don't know how we fit into their groove. But in my opinion they should be happy to have us. They should appreciate what they have, but of course to them it's all money, and right now we're not making them that much money.
Yeah, that episode where Michael got sick and was in the hospital, I was wondering if you saw that as how Mitch felt about the show, how the doctor was telling him he should let them make more of the decisions?
Definitely. Looking back on that, it probably was. He definitely talks back throughout his scripts. That was a subtle reference. The one we're shooting now is called "SOBs," and this one is definitely talking about it. This was right when we found out the back 9 were cancelled and there was rumor about the show getting cancelled indefinitely. So the whole script is Mitch talking back to the network. It's hysterical and definitely has some strong references in it. Everything we've shot we've been able to keep in. I don't know how FOX hasn't made us edit it.
