One might argue that a single creative mind couldn’t possibly be involved in making two shows as different as Deli Boys and Shifting Gears. The former is a streaming TV series of two Pakistani-American brothers who take over the family’s convenience store in Philadelphia after their crime magnate father dies. The latter is a broadcast network comedy about a mother and her children moving in with her father after a messy divorce. Not only did Michelle Nader do it, but she did it seamlessly. She shares her thoughts on comedy writing with Creative Screenwriting Magazine.
“I love them both. They’re like two different children. You love your children the same even though they’re very different,” quips showrunner and executive producer Michelle Nader. Fortunately, for Nader (2 Broke Girls, Dollface) Deli Boys wrapped last year so she can singularly focus on Shifting Gears without concurrently “shifting gears” on a daily basis.
Nader shares her perspective on comedy writing. Audiences can respond to funny characters and situations in a variety of ways – ranging from an amused smile to a belly laugh. Michelle goes for the big laughs more than the smiles. But the laughs need an emotional foundation.
Both Deli Boys and Shifting Gears explore comedy with grief underneath. It’s funny and there’s a poignance to it
Deli Boys
The stars certainly aligned for Nader when the original showrunners for Deli Boys left the show. “Abdullah Saeed’s script spoke to me,” she states. It was also an opportunity for her to work with Jenni Konner (Girls, Single Drunk Female). “Deli Boys is a really weird indie kind of TV show about a crime family and these two brothers that are fish out of dirty water in this underworld,” Nader continues.
Nader calls it “crimedy” because it’s a hybrid of crime and comedy. She cites Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese as her “role models” for the show so audiences can prepare for plenty of gratuitous violence.
The show is also very culturally specific and easy to pitch. There aren’t any other TV shows about two Pakistani-American brothers who take over the family crime business right now.
Matt (Tim Allen) & Riley (Kat Dennings) Photo by Photo by Mike Taing/ Disney/ ABC
Shifting Gears
Michelle Nader cut her teeth on network comedy which she’s described as a “dying field.” Even working with assured sitcom heavyweights like Tim Allen and Kat Dennings, Shifting Gears still made her nervous. She took over the reins from Mike Scully and Julie Scully-Thatcher. She’s also worked with Kat Dennings for many years, so picking up the mantle was a little bit easier.
The showrunner focused on the core characters of Matt Parker (Tim Allen) and Riley Parker (Kat Dennings) and their father-daughter dynamic after she moves back in with him. There was previously a brother character who didn’t substantially add to the family dynamics and was ultimately cut.
Matt was also grieving for the loss of his wife while Riley was grieving the loss of her marriage. This provides a joint foundation for their relationship to thrive.
“Broadcast comedy the highest degree of difficulty and it doesn’t get that much respect. It was me figuring out how to come to it and reinvent the form a little bit so that it could seem fresher. It’s a classic sitcom that feels kind of classic. It’s not too broad or too loud.”
It’s noteworthy that both ONYX/ Hulu and ABC are owned by 20th Century Television, so the two very different children have the same parents. By extension, they will have some similarities too.
Michelle Nader
Nader says that the parent studio 20th Century Television is very supportive of the of the writer’s voice and vision more than trying to fit a show to a particular slate. Studio remits change on a daily basis so it’s unproductive to predict them. One day they may want a workplace comedy and the next they may want an action comedy.
The showrunner doesn’t believe a creator should try to chase ever-changing trends. “I think someone’s unique vision works best because the specific is universal. When somebody like Abdullah Saeed comes with Deli boys it’s so specific and so rich,” she mentions.
Michelle Nader believes there are some structural differences between broadcast and streaming comedies. Broadcast still favors multi-cam format and has studio laughter on the sound track. Streaming shows tend to be frequently be single-cam without laugh tracks.
To illustrate her style of comedy, Nader quotes a scene from Shifting Gears where a little girl wears Tim Allen’s deceased wife’s jacket and he becomes really upset. “Everybody knew that was my idea because I like to physicalize grief to make it palpable,” continues Michelle.
Nader Nuggets
There is no single way to break into the writing business and forge a fruitful career. Michelle Nader advises that there aren’t any short cuts and you have to put in your ten thousand hours of work for a chance of success.
Immerse yourself in the world. “I when I started, I was nervous and didn’t know how to really articulate my own thoughts in a writers’ room. It’s very intimidating and daunting,” she recalls.
A lot of television writing, whether it’s comedy or not, is performative in a way that I didn’t realize
It’s impossible to predict the right script and the right time to circulate your breakout script. If something doesn’t land, write something new rather than dwell on the reasons it didn’t make an impact. Michelle doesn’t overanalyze why one of her scripts didn’t sell. She moves on.
