Comedy Central is on a ridiculous roll right now. Nathan For You, Review, Broad City, South Park, Inside Amy Schumer — these are some of the funniest shows on TV, not to mention Kroll Show and Key & Peele, which both recently wrapped up on their own terms. Don’t discount Comedy Central’s old programming, though. Chappelle’s Show is the most obvious and deserving selection, but between its monumental second season and aborted third season came the late, great Stella. The surreal series, from Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain, only lasted 10 episodes, but much like Wet Hot American Summer, it still has a devoted cult following.
Fast Company spoke to the trio for an oral history about the origin of the show, its too-soon cancellation, and the infamous blackface episode. In case you’re wondering how to connect Wain and Frank Sinatra, there you go.
MIB: It was one of those ‘should we or shouldn’t we’ jokes, one of those things that pushed the boundaries of taste so far that it sort of felt like we had to do it. I don’t even really remember the context for why they were doing it, but I know there was no racial component to it. I mean, obviously the joke was that there was a racial component, but the three of them were totally oblivious to it. They just thought of something and did it because they were, as I said, total idiots. We went back and forth on the make-up for it, but that was mostly about making it look historically accurate. And we shot it as fast as possible. (Via)
As for what a second season might have looked like, Showalter said, “The only thing I remember talking about was maybe going more toward a shorter form, maybe instead of doing 30-minute episodes, we would do three or four vignettes per episode, almost like The Three Stooges, rather than one long storyline.” Oh well, at least we’ll always have “Office Party.”
Read the rest over at FastCo.
(Via Fast Company)
