In fact, among the entire creative team, I realize most people are either first-generation, BIPOC, LGBTQ, or many hyphenates on top of that. What makes this so special to me is that it’s icing on the cake: That our Sunnyside family reflects the real America is an important bonus that comes out of our desire—Matt’s and mine—for both representation and diversity of comedic viewpoints, something my cocreator has been especially thoughtful in executing. And in his true humble Matt Murray fashion, when I ask him about it all, he downplays his own hard work, hinting at a changing system in the industry we both love, telling me, “There are plenty of great writers out there from all sorts of cool backgrounds. If other shows don’t reflect that, it kinda seems like it’s a choice.”
I think to myself about the absurdity of the casting director who once told me she wouldn’t hire me because I’m not “even” Latino; the trust fund boss who barked that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was unemployable because he’s “fucking Asian.” Our show is a real point of pride for those of us who’ve had experiences like that on our paths toward this big network television moment. “Wow,” I say to our team, feeling thankful for it all, “we’re really doing it!”
* * *
Sunnyside had a lot going for it: NBC put us in prime real estate: nine thirty on Thursday nights. In decades past, that was the same time slot occupied by Seinfeld and Friends—two iconic, hilarious New York shows (albeit each with a take on the city that looked more like Omaha than Manhattan). I was excited and anxious to be occupying that same real estate, being the new, not-from-around-here neighbors; the people of color who moved in next door, bringing our reflective, heterogeneous, modern-day NYC to the masses.
The NBC Thursday Night Comedy Block, as it was called, was formidable.
The first prime-time slot of the evening was for long-running Superstore (8 p.m.), followed by the series premiere of a musical comedy about a small-town church choir called Perfect Harmony (8:30 p.m.) starring the very funny Bradley Whitford. Our lead-in was Mike Schur’s hit The Good Place (9 p.m.), with Ted Danson and Kristen Bell. And then our baby, Sunnyside (9:30 p.m.). After that, Dick Wolf’s Law & Order, followed by your local nightly news.
Free television! No fancy streaming, no expensive paywall. Hopefully, that meant success in the ratings, but at a minimum, it meant that whoever wanted to watch the show could actually watch it. For a lot of the people in the cast—who grew up, like me, watching their parents pinch pennies—that meant something too. It’s easy to look at the monthly subscription fees for various streaming services and treat them as an afterthought, but for a lot of people, they aren’t. I was proud that anyone with a TV could join in the fun with us.
* * *
The chemistry among the cast and crew grew each day as we got into production. In between shooting scenes on our soundstage at Universal Studios, I’d head up two flights to our writers’ room to check in with the team there, weigh in on an edit with Matt and the postproduction people, offer script notes. Everything felt right. Everything felt—in a word—comfortable. Here’s an example of what I mean when I say that. When I checked in with our writers one afternoon, they were sharing stories about home remedies for a potential joke runner. Two of our writers, Bosnian American brothers Dario and Damir Konjicija, recounted how whenever they got sick as children, their mother would chop mounds of potatoes, soak them in vinegar, and stuff them in their socks to ward off the sickness. “You’d just wake up feeling miserable from an awful fever, and nauseous from the smell of the vinegar, which made being sick that much worse. Our mom would insist the ‘potato socks’ were the reason our fever eventually went away, and not the Tylenol we also took!” Telling this story in a typical writers’ room might get you some laughs at your expense. Telling it with the Sunnyside team meant you got hearty laughs with nods around the room. Since every person had an immigrant background, everyone could relate from experience on some level, and chime in with their own wholesome version of potato socks.
During this period, NBC began the marketing rollout for its Thursday-night lineup. This was the world’s introduction to our show. The first interviews and write-ups about our existence started to run. We participated in long promo and press days with NBC’s personable marketing and publicity team. There were profiles in earned media like the New York Times and entertainment magazines, and appearances on Seth Meyers and Lilly Singh.
I am not an expert in the rapidly changing business of television, but I do know the fate of any broadcast show depends on its live ratings. And whether people watch is a complex mix of everything from time slot to audience saturation to marketing (you can’t watch a show you don’t know exists). So when I thought I was seeing far less paid media—billboards and commercials—for Sunnyside compared to the other shows in the Thursday Night Comedy Block, I shrugged it off and chalked it up to me being paranoid and overly proud and just looking for something to freak out about.
* * *
Besides, I had something else to freak out about. Let’s talk about the Mets game. The initial phone call from my publicist went something like this: “Hey Kal, there’s an opportunity for you to throw out the first pitch at Citi Field to promote Sunnyside. Do you want to do it? It’ll be fun!” I immediately thought about two things: 1) piling into a rented school bus and going to Mets games with my dad and Cub Scout troop at the old Shea Stadium (Hell yeah, I’d love to throw out the first pitch. Nine-year-old me would love this!) and 2) getting picked last in gym class throughout middle school (Ha! You still can’t throw a baseball, dummy! Do not say yes to throwing out a first pitch in front of thousands of people at a baseball game, it’ll be embarrassing. You won’t make it over the plate, and then people will not want to watch your show. Twelve-year-old you would not be excited, he’d be horrified, because he knows what gym class is like, except this could be much worse because your awful throw will make it onto SportsCenter and go viral. Remember Carly Rae Jepsen’s terrible throw? 50 Cent’s botched toss? That was more than five years ago and those two still get railed for having the worst first pitches ever. The ridicule from this will never go away. Definitely say no!).
“Yes, definitely,” I said to the publicist, “I would love that!”
I realize most people can’t do what I did next, but it was critical that I not screw up this first pitch, so I texted a Major League Baseball player for advice. Chasen Shreve pitches for the Pittsburgh Pirates and had become a buddy through a promotional shoot I had done when he was with the Yankees a couple of years prior.
Was that a “you can’t throw a baseball, I would have picked you last in gym class” no-way hahahaha or was it a “that’s so cool worlds colliding” no-way hahahaha?
Practice, yes of course! It’s the athlete’s word for “rehearsal.” I had Romen quickly scour the internet for pitching coaches in Los Angeles and we landed on a place called Baseball Central in Culver City. I had three weeks to learn how to throw.
My coach turned out to be a tall, handsome baseball player named Zach who had recently graduated from Hawai‘i Pacific University.
“So, you’re throwing out a first pitch,” he said to break the ice. “When’s the last time you played baseball?”
“I guess I probably last threw a baseball in… 1992?”
“I was born in ’93.”