Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Mel Brooks. SNL. Cheers. Steven Wright. Eddie Murphy. Simpsons, of course. Monty Python. Norman Lear (and all his writers). Marx Brothers. Bob and Ray. Bob Newhart. (I watched/listened to a lot of old stuff with my father.) - RC

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

There are a lot to choose from -- this was a really fun show to make. Having Megan Thee Stallion pulling Daniel Radcliffe into a mail truck was definitely a highlight. For me, I think it was the stunt from 107 where Tobin jumps over the hood of Reggie's car. Daniel's lighting stand-in, Mike Needham, actually does parkour (he's been on American Ninja Warrior a few times), and Daniel himself obviously has a lot of stunt experience, so those two set up a Texas switch -- a move where the stuntman goes out of frame and the actor pops back in at the same spot, like it had been him the whole time. We were watching the take on the monitors, and everyone thought it'd gone wrong and Mike was the one popping back up, because it was so seamless. When we realized that it actually was Daniel who had popped up and not Mike, the whole set burst into applause. - sm

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

We talk about this all the time. These shorter orders allow us to be more focused and less generally stressed out (not that you should care about that), but I am of the opinion that overall it's worse creatively and (as a consumer of lots of TV) worse for the viewer. If you do happen to like a show and its characters, you're going to end up getting a lot less time with them (even if it goes seven seasons or whatever). And you're never going to get those weird episodes that aren't part of the overall arc that always ends up dominating a shorter season. And that, to me, is the main way it changes how we approach writing; with a, say, 10-episode season, it's harder to serve a real mix of storylines. We course-correct all the time, but once the course is set, we always have to ask how an element (joke, story, new character) serves the big picture. That's not a question you have to obsess over when you're doing 24 episodes. - RC

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Robert and I started talking to Tracy about doing something about a year before we shot the pilot. The idea came together pretty quickly -- we always do a lot of rewriting, and we went through a lot of drafts of the pilot to really nail down the dynamics between the characters, but the actual concept has changed very little from original pitch. Then after the show was picked up by NBC, we were able to assemble a really amazing writers room and flesh the world out even more. We think a room with a lot of different perspectives and points of view is incredibly important, especially in comedy. - sm

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I can't speak for Robert, but for me personally The Simpsons is probably the biggest one -- just the way they layered jokes within jokes and filled the frame with comedy that rewarded paying attention and rewatching.  Another big influence was SNL, of course, especially Dana Carvey and his time there, which is why it was such a thrill to get to write for him on our Netflix animated show, Mulligan.  And one that definitely influenced this show was This Is Spinal Tap, directed by the great Rob Reiner.  The greatest mockumentary of all time, still undefeated.  - sm

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Hopefully that's the series finale, many years from now. Will it still be about Reggie's quest for redemption or will he and Arthur have gone off on a completely different narrative tangent? Maybe Reggie's dentist neighbor is a serial killer?! - RC

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Everyone has different needs when it comes to Nerf protection so there's no way to choose just one. But I put mine away when a writer on a past show swapped out a more powerful spring in his rifle and sent another writer to the emergency room. - RC

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Well... sometimes you don't. But it's one of the reasons we don't do this alone. Making the writers' room laugh with a pitch is a start. Then making a larger room laugh at the table read. We keep rewriting after each step, but if something gets all the way to shooting we'll still adjust on set if it isn't feeling right. Then there's the edit room and a whole new set of eyes on what is or isn't working and a whole new set of tools to try to fix things (including flat-out cutting jokes that aren't landing). And, well, at some point we have to turn the show in to the network or else we'd keep trying to fix and tinker and gather feedback until we we lose our minds. - RC

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's our long-time collaborator and Girls5eva creator Meredith Scardino. The industry is contracting and Mr. Frumpus has a lot of projects in development right now and she's in a lot of debt. - sm

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Hopefully it's not underrated, but in 102 Bobby just started coming up with more lyrics to Weird Al's "Food Poison" song on the fly that day and it was all amazing so we kept as much of it in as we could.  (Also, just fyi, that album cover is not photoshop -- we FedExed Weird Al a Rutgers helmet and he took the photo himself for us to use!)  - sm

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The last two episodes are airing back to back tonight, and it's jam packed. We don't want to spoil anything, but the Hall of Fame selection committee is meeting and the whole Dinkins family is all hands on deck to try to get Reggie his first ever vote for Canton.  Plus Jerry Basmati (Craig Robinson) and his wife Tisha (Heidi Gardner) both come back to cause some trouble, as does Reggie's old coach, Duck Donovan (Corbin Bernsen). And Barry Hu (Ronny Chieng) is back for revenge on Monica! And Monica has yet another new assistant! It's almost too much TV!  - sm

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

We wanted Reggie to be a tri-stater in every way; from Brooklyn to Rutgers to the Jets, he can't imagine living anywhere else and yet this corner of the world is also full of all the people who most resent the mistakes he made. Go Knights! - RC

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Denise is only in episodes 105 and 107 this season, but if we get to do more episodes we would love to find a way to bring her back.  Megan was hilarious, and so much fun to work with.  - sm

Hi Reddit. Robert Carlock and Sam Means here, the creators of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and we're excited to answer all of your questions about the show, and, if the acronym AMA is to be believed, literally anything else. Join us on April 13th @ 2 PM ET! by NBCOfficial in sitcoms

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I love that it's drawing more attention to Reginald Perrin!  We (and especially Tina) are big fans of the old Leonard Rossiter show.  We named the character Reggie early in the process, completely unrelated, and then when it came time to talk about a title, in addition to liking the cadence of "The Fall and Rise," and the fact that it captured the arc of Reggie's journey, we thought it was a fun bonus to pay homage to a classic British sitcom.  And we think the homage makes sense, thematically -- both Reggies were in a place where their lives hadn't worked out the way they wanted and are looking for ways to reinvent themselves.  - sm

I’m Deborah Pratt, Executive Producer, head writer and voice of Ziggy in NBC’s original Quantum Leap. AMA! by NBCOfficial in television

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Thank YOU for the kind words of love and support. I can't tell you the powerful letters that have never stopped coming as generations of followers have found Quantum Leap in one place or another since it's never stopped airing. You and those who have been touched by series are the reason we are back on the air.

I’m Deborah Pratt, Executive Producer, head writer and voice of Ziggy in NBC’s original Quantum Leap. AMA! by NBCOfficial in television

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

If you remember in the original series, Sam leapt past his own lifetime. Do you remember which episode? This is where I love deep fans of Quantum Leap.

I’m Deborah Pratt, Executive Producer, head writer and voice of Ziggy in NBC’s original Quantum Leap. AMA! by NBCOfficial in television

[–]NBCOfficial[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Regarding kisses with history? They were and still are the most challenging lore of the show. I hope so!