Have you guys been watching Natasha Leggero and Riki Lindhome’s Comedy Central series, Another Period? It’s really funny! I can probably best sum it up by how Leggero described it while chatting with Jimmy Kimmel last night, in that it’s basically like “if the Kardashians moved into Downton Abbey.”
Given the absurd nature of the show (one running gag is that the sisters rename the servants at their whimsy; Michael Ian Black’s character is “Peepers,” while Christina Hendricks is named “Chair”), one might assume that all of the storylines are completely made up. As Leggero revealed, however, they base it more on historical facts than you’d think, and a lot of what they use was stuff that really happened back then.
For example, last night’s episode featured Ben Stiller as Charles Ponzi, a real life businessman from the early 20th-century for whom the Ponzi Scheme is named after. Stiller shows up at the estate with the intention of scamming the family by seducing Leggero’s character, and they present him with a gift of a small turban-wearing Indian child. Leggero says that particular joke was based on Consuelo Vanderbilt of the famed Vanderbilt family once being gifted with an Asian orphan to be her servant, which is just insane.
It’s kind of like Drunk History, only with lots more incest.
