Month: January 2022

Three important things you need to know here, so let’s knock those out first, for efficiency…

NUMBER ONE: The Afterparty is a new limited series coming to Apple TV that follows a murder mystery throughout an entire season, with each episode focusing on a different character and potential suspect, told from their point of view, with altered facts and perspectives based on their own interpretation of the events.

NUMBER TWO: It comes from Christopher Miller (of Lord and Miller, the creative minds behind like half of your favorite comedies), who styles each episode like an entirely different genre of film, with a little rom-com and a little Fast & Furious inspired action and a little musical and a little psychological thriller, among others, which makes for a really cool storytelling device over the course of the season.

NUMBER THREE: It features so many of your favorite comedic scene stealers from the past few years, everyone from Sam Richardson (Veep, Detroiters) to Ben Schwartz (Parks & Rec) to Ilana Glazer (Broad City) to Tiffany Haddish (everywhere) to John Early (Search Party) to a slew of other notable faces, many of whom will have you saying things like “hey why isn’t this person in more things?” before you realize they’ve already been in like six things you like.

So, that’s what we’re working with here. It’s all just about a perfect premise on paper. But sometimes, too often, like a slugger taking a monster cut at a fastball in an attempt to hit the ball straight to the moon, ambitious projects like this can whiff on the execution. That’s always a bummer. The effort is appreciated, and I’m glad people are trying new and cool things, but still. Bummer City.

Luckily, that’s not the case here. The Afterparty is a delight. It’s another in a cool run of comedic mysteries, too, along with other winners like Only Murders in the Building and The Flight Attendant, that twist the genre into a pretzel to create a delicious… well, a delicious pretzel. Pretzels are great. So is The Afterparty. This is the point I’m getting at.

Let’s back up, though. Let’s discuss some plot, briefly, just in the name of professionalism. The whole thing takes place at a 15-year high school reunion and the subsequent post-party shindig at the home of a character named Xavier (Franco) who has gone on to fame and riches after high school. Which is nice, for him, until he ends up dead, a few dozen feet below the balcony of his swanky beach house. Clues abound. Motives abound, too. Everyone is somehow both innocent and extremely guilty. Enter: mystery.

Also enter: Tiffany Haddish and John Early as detectives who show up and are intent on solving the murder that night, for reasons that become clear pretty quickly. Do you want to see Tiffany Haddish question a bunch of ridiculous goofs, all of whom have secrets dating back over a decade, most of whom are up to something, some of whom may or may not have been drugged with animal tranquilizers? I’ll answer that for you: You do. It’s kind of like if Knives Out were a little less linear and occasionally featured impromptu songs performed by potential murderers. I suppose we can’t rule that out for the sequel, though. I, for one, would like to see Daniel Craig attempt to rap in a southern accent that is thicker than grits. This has very little to do with anything but it’s still worth typing just for the “speak things into existence” aspect of it all. We can dream. I can dream. I don’t need to pull you into this.

But back to the style thing. It’s probably the coolest thing the show does, one of those things you’re kind of shocked hasn’t been done a million times already, and a great way to tell you more about each character without a slew of very straightforward exposition. One character’s version of events plays out with him as the sweet-hearted lead of a romantic comedy. Another version has one character portraying himself as a kind of Dominic Toretto meets John Wick, complete with flashes of neon and devastating one-liners and a hilarious urination showdown that I kind of don’t want to describe any further, in part because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes and in part because I don’t think I can improve on the phrase “urination showdown.” Another is the aforementioned musical. There’s some Gone Girl in another episode, a cartoon in another, it’s all just a blast to watch them play around with a format we’ve seen for decades. It’s like Agatha Christie on, well… on pet tranquilizers. I promise this is a compliment.

The result of it all is one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve seen in a while. The story trickles out drip by drip with single events getting shown from multiple viewpoints, changing your own interpretation of what happened as each unreliable narrator spins a yarn, building and tearing down and rebuilding as it goes along. Once the episodes start dropping weekly (the first three drop in a lump this weekend), the whodunnit of it all will make for some good speculating. You love speculating. You’re always doing it. Even when no one asked you to. But here you have an excuse. Which is helpful.

Watch The Afterparty. Tell your friends to watch it. Get together and talk about it. Have an Afterparty viewing party. Just try to make sure none of you end up dead. And try to not accidentally consume pet tranquilizers. I cannot stress this last part enough.

The first three episodes of The Afterparty premiere on Apple TV Plus on Friday, January 28.

On the latest episode of UPROXX Sessions, Bay Area rapper Stunnaman02 steps up to the mic to perform his viral hit “Big Steppin.” The breakout single has been a favorite of the Bay Area social scene, with everyone from San Francisco Mayor London Breed to 49ers mascot Sourdough Sam doing the associated dance.

The “Big Steppin” dance is also boiling hot on TikTok, home of such Soulja Boy-esque, star-making viral dance crazes, with over 38 million views since its release in June of last year. The success of that song will be a hard act to follow, but fortunately for Stunnaman, he’s also got a few side hustles, including his role in the A24 favorite The Last Black Man In San Francisco. He’s also got a clothing line and a self-produced juice drink, 02 Juice. Even though the Fillmore native is still just a regional favorite, he’s showing he has all the ingredients to produce a full-blown rap mogul in the making.

Watch Stunnaman’s UPROXX Sessions performance of “Big Steppin” above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

The ensemble cast of Netflix’s Space Force is back for a second season of space calamity. To help discourage the, uh, same mixed reviews of season one, the streaming show brought in iconic show-runner Norm Hiscock (known for Parks and Rec and King of the Hill) and The Office director Ken Kwapis. This news came after the announcement that Netflix would be cutting the show’s budget.

Show creator Greg Daniels told Collider: “We brought in the guy who directed the pilot of The Office and a lot of our biggest episodes, this guy Ken Kwapis, and he’s so much about protecting the performance energy on the set for the cast so that they can relax and not worry about the mechanics of shooting it. He’s also super good at shooting comedy, which is somewhat different than the sort of like Kubrick-y kind of thing we were going for season one, right? We saw what was working and we tried to fix it.”

Steve Carrell stars as general Mark R. Naird and his chaotic but lovable team at the Space Force branch of the military. In Season 2, a new administration puts the group to the test, to prove the Space Force should still exist. The cast includes John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Diana Silvers, Lisa Kudrow, Tawny Newsome and Jimmy O. Yang.

The gang is also joined by guest stars SNL alum Tim Meadows and star of Ratatouille, Patton Oswalt. Season 2 premieres February 18th on Netlflix, and you can check out the trailer above.

If you’re a fan of pop music, there’s one response you’re probably used to hearing when asked about your favorite musician: “She doesn’t even write her own music.” It’s a quip usually delivered from the high-horse of someone gearing up to explain what a real musician is, and that musician is most likely a man. “She doesn’t even write her own music” is a phrase many women artists are unfortunately used to hearing — even the most successful ones of the past decade. It’s meant to insult women by diminishing their hard-earned success and it’s a weak argument lacking nuance. Most importantly, it’s one that needs to stop being made.

Earlier this week, the internet’s music discourse was dominated by arguments around Taylor Swift’s songwriting. It was all thanks to a comment made by Gorillaz and Blur vocalist Damon Albarn. He answered a question from the LA Times about Swift’s music by saying, “She doesn’t write her own songs.” After the interviewer challenged his statement, as Swift has songwriting credits on all her music, Albarn back-peddled his comment (and has since apologized “unreservedly and unconditionally”) by clarifying that co-writing “doesn’t count.”

Of course, many flocked to Swift’s support, including Chile’s president-elect Gabriel Boric Font. The singer directly responded to Albarn’s comments by saying they’re “completely false and SO damaging.” Swift does in fact write all her own music. She’s the only credited songwriter on her 2010 Speak Now album, and more than half of the tracks on 2008’s Fearless and 2012’s Red were written by her alone. Albarn’s comments are a way of attempting to dismiss her talent without directly saying so — and Swift is far from the first female pop singer who’s heard the insult. Ariana Grande had to defend her music in 2019 when a writer said she’s “definitely not a songwriter,” calling her a “a cartoon and a creation.” Grande responded by posting screenshots of songwriting conversations with her producer and shared snippets of voice notes on her phone. Even Beyonce isn’t safe from similar accusations and has had industry insiders assume she hasn’t written “any of her records” for years.

While Swift was referencing her own music, her Albarn clap-back summed up why accusing women musicians of not writing their music is so harmful. “You don’t have to like my songs but it’s really f*cked up to try and discredit my writing,” she said, and she’s right on so many levels. Contrary to what many stans on Twitter may declare, not everyone needs to love Swift’s music. But diminishing her songwriting abilities sheds light on the lofty and unrealistic expectations that are already placed on women in pop music. Not only are today’s top pop stars expected to endlessly deliver hit after hit, but they need to be conventionally attractive and dress in the latest fashion every time they leave their house, otherwise face online ridicule in the case an unflattering paparazzi photo leaks (Billie Eilish, anyone?). Women pop artists are also demanded to execute insanely intricate dance choreography on stage while hitting every note perfectly. Sometimes, the pressure of it all can be crippling, like when Dua Lipa admitted she used to get “bullied online” or how Lorde infamously decided to quit social media completely. In addition to unfair standards, when have you heard someone slander a male musician by saying they don’t write their own music? Probably rarely, if never, as it’s an insult hurled almost exclusively at women. People tend not to care that earworm, chart-topping tracks like Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” has four other credited songwriters, or that Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar” was written and composed in collaboration with three others.

Gender aside, today’s pop music is almost always co-written. According to Billboard, only 13 of the 283 songs that have topped their Hot 100 chart since the 21st century have just one credited songwriter. The last time it happened was in 2017 with Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect.” But even Sheeran’s song is a technicality since the actual No. 1 version of “Perfect” was a co-written duet with Beyonce. More often than not, songwriting is a very collaborative process. Per an analysis of the most-streamed songs of 2018, the average number of writers needed to make a song a hit is nine. In pop music in particular, it’s very common for musicians to write music intended for other artists. Ed Sheeran, for example, wrote BTS’ hit song “Permission To Dance,” while SIA has written for and collaborated in songwriting sessions with artists like Rihanna, Adele, and Katy Perry. Even Ciara’s breakout debut single “Goodies” was almost given to Britney Spears.

Glossing over co-written music and mocking a woman for “not writing her own music” also skirts around a much more pressing issue in the music industry: There’s a glaring lack of women songwriters, producers, and engineers. In fact, women made up less than three percent of producers in 2020 and only 12.5 percent of songwriters according to Forbes. Less than one percent of songs released last year had female-only writers. So, maybe instead of insulting women musicians for inviting co-writers into the studio, we should instead actively foster gender equality in the industry — or at least support organizations who do.

There’s still a long way to go before gender equality is achieved behind-the-scenes in the music industry. But until then, belittling women musicians for the very-common act of co-writing music certainty doesn’t help anyone. It’s time we retire the chauvinistic phrase, “She doesn’t write her own music” as an insult and instead find more nuanced ways to discuss subjective music tastes. It’s fine to not like Top 40’s pop artists, but don’t discredit the around-the-clock work it takes to become a pop star — because it’s by no means an easy job.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Glaive turned some heads last year with his All Dogs Go To Heaven EP, which is impressive considering his age: He just turned 17 a week ago, on January 20. To mark the occasion, he announced Old Dog, New Tricks, a deluxe edition of All Dogs Go To Heaven that is out today. The deluxe edition adds five new songs — “Lap #1,” “Icarus,” “Justlikeu4theimage,” “Walking Around With No Hands,” and “Prick” — that extend the project to 13 total tracks and about 27 minutes in length.

When announcing the EP last week, Glaive shared an Instagram post in which he wrote about how the last year has been for him, saying, “16-17 was a big one for me, the year started off with me wanting music to be a part of my life and it ended with music being my life. this has been a year of firsts, my first show (shoutout cole), my first time going on tour, my first time visiting LA, and more importantly this was also the first year i was able to buy expensive things for my mom on christmas. now, i can only try to thank the people who listen to my music and support me but it’s nearly impossible. if i didn’t make music i’m not sure if i’d even be around so i can’t stress it enough that this year and this life i’ve been so fortunate to grasp has been my saving grace.”

Stream Old Dog, New Tricks above and check out Glaive’s upcoming tour dates below.

02/04 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda
02/05 — San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
02/09 — Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
02/11 — Dallas, TX @ Dada
02/12 — Austin, TX @ Empire Control Room
02/16 — Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
02/18 — Washington, DC @ Union Stage
02/19 — New York, NY @ Webster Hall
02/20 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry
02/22 — Cambridge, MA @ Sinclair
02/25 — Detroit, MI @ El Club
02/26 — Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
02/27 — Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground

Old Dog, New Tricks is out now via Interscope Records. Get it here.

In addition to being the world’s most popular podcaster, Joe Rogan is also a moron (his words). This is, of course, no surprise to most people—not even the millions of people who regular tune into The Joe Rogan Experience. But it bears repeating, especially after Tuesday’s episode, in which Rogan and controversial clinical psychologist/YouTuber Jordan Peterson decided to share their opinions on Blackness. It went about as well as you’d expect.

As Mediaite reports, Peterson kicked off the shenanigans by claiming that it was wrong to call him white, because “I am kind of tan” (which he most definitely is not). Rogan took the buffoon baton from there and ran with it, explaining that:

“The Black and white thing is so strange, because the shades are such a spectrum of shades of people. Unless you are talking to someone who is, like, 100 percent African from the darkest place, where they are not wearing any clothes all day and they have developed all of that melanin to protect themselves from the sun, even the term Black is weird. When you use it for people who are literally my color, it becomes very strange.”

Needless to say, Trevor Noah had a few thoughts about this whole inane conversation. After first feigning gleeful shock—“Oh my god! I’m not Black. I’m not Black!”—Noah decided to respond to Rogan, who “apparently wants to know why they say ‘Black people’ if they’re not the color of a Sharpie.” And Noah admitted that Rogan wasn’t the first person to ask this question: “When my brother was five years old, he asked me the exact same thing.”

But The Daily Show host pointed out a very important part of the conversation that Rogan and Peterson seemed to forget:

“Black people didn’t call themselves Black. You understand that, right? It’s not like Black people were like, ‘We’re Black.’ No. In Africa, we have tribes. We have cultures. Zulu. Xhosa. Baganda. Igbo. Wakandans! But then white people got there, and they were like, ‘Wow. There’s a lot of Black people here. A lot of Black people.’ Then in America, they invented a rule that if you had one drop of Black blood in you, that makes you Black—which defined how you were treated by the government and by society. Even vampires wouldn’t bite you.”

On the upside, Noah was at least glad that Rogan wasn’t talking nonsense about vaccines for once, which he said “was a step in the right direction.”

You can watch the clip below.

(Via Mediaite)

Candace Owens has been having an eventful week. Not only did Jesse Watters give her the opportunity to go bananas over Minnie Mouse temporarily ditching her “iconic” dress to wear (the outrage drill keeps going), but her name has popped up in relation to Justice Breyer’s recent announcement of Supreme Court retirement. In the aftermath of this news, President Biden confirmed his intent to nominate a Black woman as a replacement justice, and that’s somehow led to right-wingers tossing out the Daily Wire host’s name on Twitter.

Not that this could actually happen, given that Owens did not graduate college for that journalism degree that she pursued, meaning that she also didn’t go to law school, which is a prerequisite for serving on the highest court in the land. Yet Candace, whether she’s trolling or not, heard about people mentioning her name, in jest or not, and she wants everyone to know that she is flattered to be ending. “What an honor,” she tweeted.

If “America” is people who are far-right and think that Twitter is a way to nominate a justice, then sure, but that’s not how these things roll. There’s probably no way to know for sure if she’s serious, short of her appearing on Tucker Carlson’s show to talk about it (and that could happen), but regardless, people sure are enjoying this tweet. Justice Troll doesn’t have a nice ring to it, but perhaps Owens believes that if a reality star can become president, then anything is possible.

Of all the many rap beefs in the history of hip-hop, none has been as brutally dissected — and deadly — as Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac’s East Coast/West Coast spat. Things reached a head when Tupac dropped the supremely insulting “Hit ‘Em Up” in June of 1996, which besides being lyrically pointed at Big, Puff and Mobb Deep, rode samples of two Junior Mafia tracks in “Get Money” and “Player’s Anthem.”

While Biggie got his shots own shots in over the years (“Who Shot Ya?” came out months after Tupac was shot at Quad Studios in November of 1994, although Biggie never admitted it being pointed at Tupac), there was more in store from Biggie that never fully materialized the way he ended it to. In an interview with The Art Of Dialogue, Junior Mafia member and Biggie’s cousin, Lil Cease, shed more light on the epic beef and what might have happened if things went as planned:

“Big wasn’t gonna put forth a full effort into a whole full song dissing Tupac… Big was kinda more like just sprinkling on it,” Cease said of “The Ugliest,” a J-Dilla produced track that featured Busta Rhymes. Biggie delivered the verse, “And the winner is, not that thinner kid / Bandanas, tattoos, my fist never bruise / Land still cruise, Frank White paid his dues.” While Tupac wasn’t name-checked, it was clear who the lyrics was pointed at, and the diss was strong enough for Busta to not put the song on the album it was earmarked for, The Coming, but this was hardly the epic shot that Biggie thought he could take with a little help.

Cease says the original plan was for Nas and Busta to do the heavy lifting on the diss which could have really lit a fire under the beef. But that’s not how it went down.

“It’s not a diss if you don’t say their name. Ya gotta say somebody’s name if you wanna call it a ‘diss record’” Cease says. “If you’re just throwing subliminals, that’s only for that man to hear and figure out ’cause you’re gonna say something that only he would understand like, ‘Alright, he’s talking about me.’ Big didn’t say his name… It was for Busta Rhymes’ song at that. The song never came out — supposed to been Busta Rhymes, Nas and Big. It was produced by Q-Tip. But everybody never did their verse after Big did his. Nobody laid the verse on it, so the song kinda just pushed away. ”

Nevermind that Cease confuses Dilla with Q-Tip as the song’s producer (Tip was famously J Dilla’s manager), but had Nas and Busta joined Biggie in the spat, “The Ugliest” could very well have topped “Hit ‘Em Up” as the piece de resistance of the Tupac/Biggie beef.

Watch a clip of Lil Cease’s interview below.

It makes a lot of sense Amy Poehler – who, whether she’d admit this or not at this point, has had an incredibly important role to play in comedy on television over the last, now, 20 years – would want to make a documentary (Lucy and Desi which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival) about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez. After all, those two were, in almost every way imaginable, trailblazers of the medium. Without Ball and Arnez, television might look very different. And as Poehler points out, it’s not just that Ball was leading a show — then, later, her own production company, as a woman, before anyone else was doing that – she was doing it so early, what she was doing was trailblazing for anyone. And then there’s the whole aspect of Ball headlining a show with her own husband, a Cuban immigrant, in the 1950s. And Poehler’s right, by design, the show really doesn’t address that or make a thing about it. It’s just: here it is. What they did really is remarkable.

And the things that Poehler has decided to include take on even more importance when you think it through that these are, as someone who has also lived this career, a few decades later, some of the same obstacles she’s no doubt had to deal with. And then there’s Lucille Ball, paving the way. As Poehler mentions, her current production company has a couple of series and a couple of movies cooking at once. At one point Desilu was producing 30 shows.

Ahead, Amy Poehler explains why she wanted to make a documentary on, not just Lucille Ball or I Love Lucy, but the relationship between Ball and Arnez. And, also, when you get going on classic television, you never know where you might wind up, so there’s a lot more Three’s Company and Little House on the Prairie discussion than you might expect. (To be fair, Lucille Ball did appear on Three’s Company.)

I think the last time I spoke to you was for Sisters…

I was doing a little IMDB quiz, I just found out that we said the F-bomb 60 times in that movie. Exciting!

Is that any kind of record?

For my daily usage, no. But for a film, sure. I like your background by the way. It’s very MacGyver.

Oh no, it’s embarrassing.

It’s very MacGyver. Or MacGruber.

Yes, with my The Great Muppet Caper poster.

I love that movie. “Phil, this is Gil. Gil, this is Jill.”

And Fozzy and Kermit are twins in that movie. It’s amazing. No, we just moved and I don’t have a great background right now. We moved one block and it never ends…

You have to bring it box by box.

And it’s the stupidest thing to even try that. Then we had to get a moving company anyway.

Right!

So, I am curious, what were your first memories of Lucy and Desi? As a kid, when did you start watching them?

I was trying to think about that, because I feel like I Love Lucy, specifically the show, it felt like it always existed. It was always there. And I was like, when did first hear about it? I think, to be honest, a lot of me getting to know Lucile Ball, the actress, happened on The Carol Burnett Show, which was as a show that I definitely watched when I was growing up with my mom. And I Love Lucy was on, but it was in black and white and it was the show my parents watched. So I was like “SNL, baby!” And it wasn’t until I was an adult that I was like, oh, okay. I started a real relationship with I Love Lucy and really saw what Lucy was doing there, which was incredibly grounded acting.

And it’s so interesting that show, people ask why is the show is still being talked about 60 years later? And I think there are two reasons: I think, because the way it was shot on film, it’s really watchable still. It’s not in Kinetoscope and you can actually bear to watch it. It looks quite good. But Lucille’s performance is still very, very grounded. She’s acting everything very sincerely. It’s not bananas, even though the situations are bananas. She’s still grounding it somehow. So to answer your question, it was always around, it almost felt like it came with the TV when you got a TV.

Well, in the ’80s when I would get home from school, it’s not like you can just pull up anything you want. It was just like if a rerun of Hazel was on, I was watching reruns of Hazel.

People don’t even know that you had to get up to turn the channel. Imagine you having to get up and walk across a room to look at your next TikTok video. Imagine having to get up every time and swipe at your TV to watch the next video. It was horrifying.

I actually remember my first experience with Lucy. My favorite show as a little kid was Three’s Company. Remember when she came on and introduced all the clips from the previous seasons? She’s like, “Hello, I’m Lucille Ball. There’s no better show on TV than Three’s Company.”

First of all, we may have talked about this, John Ritter…

Yes, I love John Ritter.

And John and Lucy were friends. And Lucy proves a couple of theories and, boy, do I love my theories proven. One is that talented people are usually easy to work with and Lucy was strong and opinionated, but she showed up and she loved to work hard. She didn’t come and not know her lines and not care. And she really recognized talent. I know she loved John Ritter. She would watch Mary Tyler Moore and tape her show. She loved Bette Midler. She was obsessed with Carol Burnett. She was like, “They have it. They’re a star. That kid is talented.” Oh my gosh, I would’ve loved that. I mean Three’s Company! Wow.

I still watch it when it’s on.

Yeah, my new comfort show, which is not comedy, is Little House on the Prairie.

Wait, really?

That one can put you right to sleep. The sound, the clipping of the horses and the whistling of the wind and the blizzard that’s going to kill everyone?

Are you seeking it out on cable or is it streaming?

It’s on my DVR. It’s DVRed it.

I’m glad we’re putting in the legwork for Little House on the Prairie and Three’s Company. Check them out if you haven’t seen them, everyone.

[Laughing] Have you guys heard of Succession? You should check it out, it’s great.

And if you like Succession, you will love Little House on the Prairie. Michael Landon has a Logan Roy thing going on. I am sure the good folks at ABC gave Lucille Ball a lot of money to go on there to talk about Three’s Company. But I don’t think she would’ve done it if she didn’t like the show or were friends with John Ritter. So if she’s saying that, I remember going, well, I need to check out this Lucy show.

Well, one of the challenges for this doc, which is a little different than like, “let us show you the world of competitive handball and we’ll tell you everything about it.” These are people that people really feel like they know, but what they know is a very two-dimensional Halloween costume version. They almost know the impersonations of the people before they know the people, right? They see Gilda playing Lucy or they see, it’s this interesting thing where Lucy and Desi became very two dimensional, flattened and quite bloodless over the years….

Or the Weird Al song…

Yes. And I wanted to remind the viewer that these were passionate, very passionate, sexy, power couple, total outsiders, total mavericks, came into the business with tons of experience, so we’re quite confident in what they would say yes and no to. And came from a generation where their trauma was put in a suitcase and put in the attic and let’s get to work. I mean, it’s very interesting how they both had these really interesting early lives, but used it. So, that was my goal is that you walk away being reminded of them as people and not symbols or geniuses or icons even, which is like, what is that? What does that word mean?

Another interesting thing your film does is point out how important their production company was. I’d watch reruns of Star Trek and it was made by Desilu Productions. They created so many other shows.

I mean, here at Paper Kite, our production company, we have, right now, we have a couple of shows on the air and a couple of films in development. They had 30 shows at one point! Shooting at the same time! Lucy was adamant about keeping Gene Roddenberry working on that show. Everyone was like, “This kid, what is this wackadoo show?” So, yeah, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek were made by Desilu.

And whatever happened to those two shows? We don’t ever hear about Star Trek or Mission: Impossible anymore.

[Laughs] Totally. What I find very interesting is the way in which everybody wanted to put Desi and Lucy in these boxes. That, in fact, they did a lot of different things and they were true multi-hyphenates and even they wanted to put themselves in boxes, even then Lucy was of a generation that probably wouldn’t call herself a writer or director or even a feminist. Those were things that weren’t important to her and didn’t feel like when she tried them on they were right. But, with perspective, it’s like she was the first female head of any production studio and ran it really well. And whether or not she felt like that was her true essence, she did it really well. It’s just interesting, they were so adhered to their time, the ’50s and ’60s and ’70s. And the other thing is, people think when people are off a TV show, they just fall off the cliff. And Lucy did so many shows after I Love Lucy.

A lot of them got in the syndication. Sometimes they’d play like Here’s Lucy, or whatever.

And Vivian Vance is playing a divorced mom.

Right. In retrospect, that is crazy that they went with that at that time. But they did.

One hundred percent. And so there’s all this stuff that you look back now… And also, the fact that Desi and Lucy as a couple on TV was completely groundbreaking, that he was a Cuban immigrant, married to a woman, he was able to push back a lot of gatekeeping to be so successful. And the show was not about how that was weird. The show wasn’t like, can you believe these two?

No, not at all. It’s just like, no, we’re together. And here we go.

The show is like, okay, they’ve been together so let’s meet them there rather than where did they meet and how could they: he’s this; she is this. I mean, it’s just really wild.

It’s kind of crazy this documentary doesn’t already exist about them before you did it? At what point did you decide, well, I should make this?

Well, Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, Lucy and Desi’s daughter who is incredible in this film and so helpful – we really use a lot of Lucy and Desi’s real words in the film. We really want to hear from them. So we use them a lot. She had done a documentary about her family, and I know that there’s been a lot of I Love Lucy tales of that show. But I agree that I think that what was missing was this feeling of their long partnership and how that was the middle of all of this other stuff. And I just think that people, they tended to pull all of the aspects of I Love Lucy apart without paying attention to that.

Right. I’ve seen where it’s just like here’s why I Love Lucy is important. I understand that. But I want to see more about them and that’s what you do.

And sometimes with documentaries about comedy either there’s a lot of time spent with funny people saying that the other person… there’s a lot of time telling us what we already know, which is, “they were funny.” Or a lot of time is spent being like, “but they were also very sad.”

That’s true.

Which is true. No one’s all fun. And no one’s all sad, hopefully. So I kind of felt like I was hoping that we’d go in on the angle of rupture and repair, which is this idea of we invite people into our homes and television, as you know, it’s like the most intimate medium. And then we watch this pattern of things going wrong and things getting fixed over and over again – while we’re in the middle of our own families where things are going wrong and not getting fixed. So to watch their journey – as lovers, as partners, as in some aspect at certain points, adversaries into friends – is this very healing journey. I think that combines all of the things that they did.

You mentioned their daughter where she talks about Desi and Lucy’s last conversation together before Desi died, when they told each other they loved each other. I had never heard that before. Have you heard that before? Did you know that?

You know what? It was so special. Not only because the story is beautiful, which is that Lucy and Desi, up until the very end of Desi’s life and soon after, Lucy’s, remained connected. Which is kind of what we very much want. But when Lucie [Arnaz Luckinbill] tells the story about her parents at the end of their lives, watching the show together and laughing? It’s like, I can’t explain it other than it’s what you would want for your own parents. Or what you would want for yourself or what you feel like life is supposed to be is this moment where you get to look back at the laughs that you had and the things you made together one last time. And when Lucie was telling that story, there were two things: I was so grateful that she was being vulnerable and allowing us to know that story. But also it was just, to me, it’s what that beautiful sadness that comedy has, that loving two sides of the coin, the salty and sweet of all of it is so satisfying to be around. So, yeah, I couldn’t believe that story.

Before we go, you mentioned my background. But you’ve got the Pawnee city seal behind you.

I know! I have the Pawnee seal!

That’s better than the nonsense going on behind me.

I remember where I came from, sir. That’s for sure.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Celebrities need to file restraining orders all the time due to harassment from stalkers, but a recent incident involving a Taylor Swift fan came very close to putting someone in harm’s way. An obsessed fan reportedly crashed his car into her NYC apartment building, severely damaging the front door and endangering passersby.

The incident went down Thursday morning, according to a report from TMZ. Police responded to a 911 call about a car crash outside of Swift’s NYC home, and they arrived to find a drunken fan. Apparently, the man drove the wrong way down the street outside Swift’s home, put his car into reverse, and rammed his vehicle into the building’s front door, striking a nearby fire hydrant. The man then reportedly got out of his car and ran up to the building’s intercom. He began yelling into it before trying to rip it out of the door while mumbling some words about wanting to see Swift.

Police eventually arrived on the scene to apprehend the man and take him to a nearby hospital. Per TMZ’s report, the fan is facing potential charges for driving while intoxicated and criminal mischief. It’s unclear whether or not Swift was in the building at the time of the car crash, but police told TMZ the man announced he wouldn’t leave the scene until he spoke with Swift herself.