Despite the insanity of using whether you would want to have a beer with someone as a legitimate reason for voting for or against them, I always felt that is indicative of a massive problem in politics: It matters as much what your personality is as how smart you are or how good you are at your job. That is a huge, huge problem. A lot of people who are very smart or very good at their jobs are not people I would want to ever have a beer with - but I would want them making massive policy decisions with huge implications for the future of the planet.
Michael SchurI find Billy Eichner to be hilarious, though I also imagine that for many, a little goes a long way. Billy provides a kind of comedy the Parks and Recreations show did not have - an insane person screaming at everyone, and our job going forward, as it is with all of our characters, is to develop him and make him more three dimensional.
Michael SchurWhat's important on a comedy show, or any show, is that some stories have to go somewhere. There have to be ends to the beginnings and middles you create. But sometimes it's like a way station on the highway, then the actual thing doesn't have to be this giant, climactic, life-changing, game-changing thing.
Michael SchurAll of comedy at some level is trial-and-error, whether it's a stand-up trying out jokes or a comedy show trying stories.
Michael SchurWith mockumentaries, the conceit is that the characters are being interviewed, so you can start a scene and cut to a character looking at the camera and saying, "I'm working on this project," instead of having to figure out ways for people to talk naturally about what they're doing. You see this problem in pilots - people end up explaining things to each other that they'd never explain in real life.
Michael Schur