There are stories that I can’t tell in movies because they’re just too small. But with TV saying “Oh god I can really go into detail on this” – that’s why I fell in love with “This Country”, which then became “Flatch”. I was like, I want to be personally involved in this. I want to direct this one. I want to write a lot of them. I really want to be in the mix.
“Flatch” appealed to me because of my Midwestern upbringing and because I loved those kinds of characters so much. I also like the docu style of comedy, which is the best way to make comedy on television because it’s so direct, so in the moment.
Besides the fact that you grew up in the Midwest, why was the setting so important to you?
I feel like a protector of the Midwest and small towns. It’s very much on the coast to joke about the flyover states, as they call them – and I’m… from there’s an overpass, you know? So when Jenny Bicks and I took this out to try and sell it, that was everyone’s first question: They said, “We just need to make sure you don’t ridicule small towns.” And it was like, that’s not what we want to do. Jenny comes from a small town. I come from a small town. We want to protect them. But by doing that, we want to have fun with them. And I want you to laugh with them.
How did you figure out how to customize ‘This Country’?
By adapting “The Office”, we’ve all learned that the American public has a really hard time finding an unattractive character with no quotes or a character that can’t be redeemed. After “The 40 Year Old Virgin” came out, you go “people love Steve Carell,” so it was like, okay, he must have wins. He must mean well. Even though he can be totally horrible, he means well. That was the big revelation, and “Flatch” is in the same mold.
Why do you think the American public has a hard time with an unsympathetic character?
I think we Americans just love lead characters that we can advocate for. We are generally optimistic and empathetic. We are still too young as a country to be overly cynical. We like happy endings and characters learning lessons. We like Scrooge because he becomes a nice guy after being a jerk the whole story. But if he didn’t, and we were just asked to enjoy Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim humiliating him, and the story ended with Scrooge saying, “Bah humbug,” and slamming the door while the whole town laughs and his house pelted. with rotten fruit – we would be mad that we had to endure that. We love redemption in our stories.
I have a feeling the British public might enjoy a farmer going up a gear because it’s kind of what their press is known for, poking holes in powerful people. I like British humor because most of the time it’s about the fun of taking bloated people up a notch. Americans enjoy that too, but usually when it happens to the bad guy, not the main character.
