Undateable Live!

It began as a toss-away summer program in 2014 about a group of 30-somethings solving one another’s problems in a Detroit bar.

But NBC’s Undateable soon became the highest rated summer comedy launch in years, quickly earning a second season renewal. Then, series showrunner and executive producer Bill Lawrence (Spin City, Scrubs) offered up what looked like a May sweeps gimmick: an hour-long live episode, the first of its kind.

The special was presented as a kind of 1960’s throwback, more variety hour than muti-cam sitcom, with guest spots from musician Ed Sheeran, Scrubs alums Zach Braff and Donald Faison, Kate Walsh, Scott Foley and Minnie Driver.

Lawrence predicted, “We think we’ll get a sampling of people that don’t know this show exists. If they tune in for this, with upfronts next week, the show will get picked up. That’s the plan.” And so it went.

In fact, following the star-studded episode, the series was picked up for an all-live third season, premiering this Friday, October 9. The test episode had succeeded in both receiving a ratings bump and garnering critical praise.

Undateable also appears on a network that has famously embraced live television: Saturday Night Live; special episodes of ER and 30 Rock; and musicals: Peter Pan, The Sound of Music and this December, The Wiz. NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt has even described himself as a “live junkie.”

The ace up Undateable’s sleeve, however, is a cast of performers well-versed in live shows of all kinds.

Series stars Chris D’Elia (Danny), Brent Morin (Justin), Ron Funches (Shelly) and Rick Glassman (Burski) are all stand-up comedians and perform regularly in front of live audiences, sometimes numbering in the thousands. David Fynn (Brett) has performed in live theater, including the production She Stoops to Conquer, a National Theatre Live staging which was broadcast to cinemas around the world. And Bridgit Mendler (Candace), singer and YouTube star, performs in concert regularly.

So what is there to be afraid of? A lot, as it turns out; including fines from the FCC. “Our line producer did the math on how much cursing costs in a live show,” says Lawrence, pointing out a swear jar kept on set as a reminder. “It’s like $270,000 per affiliate or something, so seven million dollars per curse.”

“We’ve definitely been threatened about that,” says Mendler, referring to the costly fines. “I think we all know who the problem child is.” She is referring of course to Morin, the resounding answer from cast and crew alike when asked who would screw up first, worst and most.

“The worst will be Rick probably, acting-wise,” counters Morin. “But then I’ll definitely mess everything up the same way I messed this sentence up.” He goes on, “I might get cocky. I might be like, ‘Oh, I can do this.’ And then I’ll take some weird risks. Worst case scenario: I swear too much and I cost the show 45 million dollars.”

Funches jokes, “Brent’s goanna break. We all know it. He’s just not good at his job.”

“And he gets really insecure,” adds Glassman. “So he thinks that if he laughs people will think that he’s having a good time, but we know it’s just because he doesn’t know what to do with his body at the moment.”

Series creator and executive producer Adam Sztykiel predicts: “We’ll be in the hole 45 million by the end of the night. The pro of going live is that it’s a window into what our tape nights are like, which is also the con.”

“No one will swear,” says D’Elia. “But we might get so lost that it's just dead air.”

Pointing out the fact that whatever happens on live television is what goes, Morin says, “We could change story plots. We could come in and be like, ‘Burski just died.’ And then he’s out for the rest of the season.”

Counters D’Elia: “‘Leslie's in a coma.’”

“Do that with everybody and it’s just us,” says Morin, laughing.

“I will not ace it. There’s no way,” says D’Elia. “I might B-plus it.” When asked what his first reaction was when he heard Undateable would be going live, D’Elia responds, “It was, ‘Let’s do it; awesome.’ And then I started thinking, ‘Oh wait. There are other people that might mess it up.’ I think I'll laugh, but I think all of my laughs will be self-contained.”

“Yeah, he's good at hiding a laugh in a character,” admits Morin.

But, as Fynn observes, “Friends laughing at each other is real life. Bill always said, ‘If you start laughing, just go with it.’”

“I like it when people screw up,” explains Lawrence. “But I hate it when they screw up too much. So the sweet spot is that there are a couple of funny, happy accidents, but that things never veer too far off that no one can remember anything. Which has happened here before.”

“I think it probably won’t seem as jarring for our audiences as it may seem to others,” says Bianca Kajlich (Leslie). “Because Bill includes a lot of that stuff in the cuts already.” Kajlich also points out, “We’re rehearsing a lot more with a script that’s not changing. Whereas, we’re used to coming to set before a taping and hearing, ‘You got the new line, right?’”

She does admit to breaking however, and cast mate Fynn adds, “Bianca breaks less, but she breaks harder. If she goes, it takes us a minute, because she starts crying, her head goes down, the shoulders are going…”

Funches jokes, “The pros of doing it live are that more people will watch, there’s a bigger interest, it’s fun, we could curse and then destroy a whole network…which is a negative. But also to say that I did that is kind of a plus, right?” And more seriously, “It’s a little bit of TV history, and that’s rare.  I think it’s mostly pros.”   

When it comes to timing out the episode, Lawrence is the only one who seems concerned. “The problem for us is our laugh spread when we do it in front of a live audience,” says the showrunner.

“Because the comics have a predisposition when they’re getting laughs, as they get in real life, to milk it, and start adding material.” The practical solution is to build in scenes to the script that can be removed as the show progresses. “They drop out if we’re behind and don’t affect the story moving forward or not."

“We had always talked about how cool it would be for people at home to see what a live viewing experience of this show is like, which is insanity,” continues Lawrence.

“My greatest fear, though, is that those tapings are a curse-fest, screw-up fest. As soon as we said we were going to have a live show, the cast immediately started betting on how they were going to make each other laugh and forget their lines. They’re not trying to help each other, they’re saying, ‘I’m going to make you laugh, and make you look stupid. You better have something to say when you can’t remember what you’re supposed to say.’”

But the chance to go live is also one of new-found opportunity for Lawrence. “This is going to sound very self-indulgent, but it’s the one thing in TV I’ve never gotten to do. I’ve never done a live show. I’ve done multi-cams, musicals, hour-long single camera comedies, but never live.”

For a show that typically relies on improvisation and a “one take for me, one take for you” mentality, they may be taking a risk by not letting the cast of comics go too far off script. But Glassman explains, “We are allowed to improvise, but we know we only get one at bat. So we’re not trying to hit home runs, we’ve just got to get on base.”

When Mendler is asked what she’s most looking forward to going live she responds, “Seeing what the failures are. Like, when people don’t deliver, how do we lift them up out of that, carry things on to the tracks, and then head back on our way?” She adds, “When they don’t mess up on live shows it’s really boring. I think the mess-ups are going to be a good thing. At least that’s what I keep telling myself, because I feel like it’s probably inevitable.”

Summing it up, Mendler quips, “The best case scenario is: we win an Emmy. Worst case scenario? Somebody dies.”