Pop Quiz – What was the most binge-watched TV show on Netflix in 2018? What made the the Top 10 most ‘googled’ TV show in the same year? If you answered On My Block to both questions, you progress to the next round. Eddie Gonzalez and Jeremy Haft, the show’s co-creators talked to Creative Screenwriting Magazine about navigating a hit TV show.

Eddie grew up in Compton and Lynwood areas of Los Angeles, CA which formed the basis for On My Block. “When you see inner city neighborhoods portrayed on film or TV, there’s usually this bleak approach. Everything is awful. Everything is dire. Everything is hopeless. Having grown up there, it’s the antithesis of that,” he announced.

Gonzalez doesn’t deny that inner city life has its dangers, including dealing with life and death. “There’s this amazing sense of community and family.” He wanted to highlight these positive aspects in On My Block.

Lauren Iungerich, the show’s third co-creator (who also created the highly-praised Awkward) approached Gonzalez and Haft with some tribute videos of the Awkward produced by kids of color. Lauren wanted to make a show that inhabits their world. The writing trio got together to flesh out the bones for On My Block. “We get together. Six weeks of brainstorming at a Panera restaurant in Sherman Oaks [Los Angeles.] After that we were fortunate enough to sell the show,” recalls Eddie. “We wanted to explore the authenticiy and ‘other side’ of growing up in the inner city.”

Eddie Gonzalez & Jeremy Haft

Before On The Block

The writing duo were frustrated at their perceived lack of career progress writing feature length screenplays, so they took a writing detour.

On a whim, Eddie and Jeremy wrote their first original one-hour drama TV show in two weeks. “It was loosely based on Eddie’s older brother who was an attorney. He grew up in a very Latino, blue collar world and later became a white collar attorney,” said Haft.

Prolific TV writer Scott Rosenbaum (Queen Of The South, V, The Shield) championed their script and subsequently secured Eddie and Jeremy a place on Gang Related. Their TV writing education began in earnest.

Since then, the screenwriting pair have worked together for around two decades on popular shows like Empire and the Tupac biopic All Eyez On Me. They capitalized on the shift in the industry in terms of the quality and quantity of TV being produced. Despite taking many meetings around town, they were being squeezed into an “urban” box of dark, violent, gritty stories. Gonzalez rebelled against this stereotyping which contradicted the fun adventures he had on his home turf. This set the tone for On My Block.

“We wanted to protray a three dimensional view of that world. We finally had the writing experience to create our own TV show,” said Haft. “Lauren, Eddie and I put all our sensibilities together to write On My Block.”

Pitching To Netflix

Jeremy and Eddie were asked how they pitched the show to Netflix. Eddie recalls, “We knew we wanted to go to streaming. We’re big fans of Neflix and thought this would be the ideal home for it. The three of us took a one hour meeting late on a Friday afternoon, which is not the best time to pitch. We had a rehearsed pitch where each had a specific thing to say. The big question was the end of the first season. [spoiler alert.] We always intended to kill Olivia… Around forty minutes after the meeting, while we were driving home, we received a phone call from Netflix wanting to make an offer.”

The TV show prides itself on authentically portraying the subcultures of kids of color. “Terms like Latinx and Afro-Latinx are all encompassing for millenials. Their mantra is ‘We don’t need to be saved. We need to be heard.’ Finally, we have a TV about people who actually look like us,” added Gonzalez. “It’s a new time where we can tell authentic stories about real characters and real people of all ethnicities.”

On building the show, Eddie declares “It all comes down to character. There were themes we wanted to explore like friendship, single parents, and female empowerment. These were kids on the precipice of going to high school. These were exciting times. You have this impression of what high school was meant to be. We hired TV writers who not only were people of color, but who also understood this world. We wanted people who knew these inner city neighborhoods and could easily flip the tropes.”

They had to address cultural stereotypes. “If you’re in a gang you must be a bad person. That’s not true. Gang members are complex people. When we put together the writers’ room, we wanted the screenwriters to bring in their various backgrounds and tell their stories,” continued Eddie.

“We also hired story consultants. One of the things in working with Lauren is her desire to create opportunities for other people. We found three amazing story consultants – two of which grew up in the inner city who had family members involved in gangs and personally witnessed specific events in their neighborhoods. We can imbue these experiences into our stories. They made the stories richer and more textured so audience could say ‘that’s exactly what happened in my neighborhood,‘” asserted Gonazalez.

Breaking The Stories

“Lauren, Eddie and I broke the season on our own broke each season on our own in general ideas. Then we would talk to everyone about how we could be authentic in how we explored them,” said Jeremy. “We wanted to get into the backgrounds of the characters. We go where our characters go. There are no limits.” On My Block intersects story specificity and universality. It’s about teenagers doing things like having sex or going to prom.

“The darkly comedic tone of On My Block is one of the most important and difficult things,” mused Jeremy. “Much like real life, drama goes into comedy and comedy goes into drama. It’s a reflection of reality.”

“You can’t live in a neighborhood like Compton and see all things bleak and dark. There is a lot of comedy in some of the darkness. You might think you shouldn’t be laughing in a particular scene, but it works,” added Eddie.  “For instance, perhaps identifying the type of gun used at a party is a coping mechanism. It’s something we deal with.”

In closing, both Eddie and Jeremy have firm philosophies on life.

“I am grateful for everything that I have and the people I have around me,” mused Eddie.

“Be kind.  Be generous with other people. You don’t know what they are going through,” concluded Jeremy.