While promoting her new Disney+ series The Mysterious Benedict Society ahead of its final episode on Friday, comedian Kristen Schaal opened up about her very brief time as a writer for South Park. The whole thing went down in 2007 when Schaal had just landed a role on HBO’s The Flight of the Conchords. At the same time, Trey Parker and Matt Stone had reached out after seeing her Penelope Princess of Pets web series and offered her a job writing for the Comedy Central staple.
However, as Schaal explained to The Last Laugh podcast, she had never been in a writer’s room before, and as a Colorado native and avid South Park fan, she felt compelled to hit the grounding by pitching way too much. “I was like, ‘How about this? How about this? How about this?’ And that’s not how it works.” Despite being let go for being a bit too overeager, Schaal said things are absolutely good between her and South Park creators Parker and Stone. Via The Daily Beast:
No, it’s all good. When I got the call that I’d been let go, it was devastating. Tig Notaro had this garage that she turned into a little guest house that I was crashing in. And covering rent was a little tough. So I was like, “Tig, I just got fired! Do I have to cover the rent?” She was like… yeah. [Laughs] So I was devastated, but I remember I talked to James Bobin, the co-creator of Flight of the Conchords, the day I got fired. We had margaritas. And he was like, “Ah, f*ck it.” He gave me good advice. He said, “You’re going to get fired, you’re going to get hired, it’s fine.” And then I flew home and—jeez, this year was incredible!—I flew home and then I met my husband.
Schaal even ran into Parker and Stone at a Comedy Central awards show, who made it a point to stop and talk to her backstage. “They recognized me. And I was like, ‘Hey dudes, congratulations!’ It was very friendly,” Schaal said. “So I always root for them. Everything they do is so good.”
(Via The Daily Beast)