How the TV Mockumentary Has ‘Become the Modern Laugh Track’
Twenty years ago, Greg Daniels learned an important lesson about making mockumentaries by way of a basketball game. He was directing the fifth episode of “The Office” — Season 1’s now-famous “Basketball” and his first behind the camera. The hilariously chaotic pickup game in the Dunder Mifflin warehouse allowed the cast to play off the dynamics built in the first four episodes and test out the improvisational nature of the genre. Daniels worked closely with the camera operators — “talking with them as you would actors,” he says — about being ready for whatever happens on and off the “court.”
“The essence of the mockumentary to me is that you don’t have to know exactly what you are going to get when you start,” says the creator. “There are character rules and situational rules but just like a basketball game, you don’t know what is going to happen.”
With fine-tuned ensembles at the ready, there’s a freedom in mockumentaries; even with a script, cameras are always bound to catch, and inspire, the unexpected. It’s a creed Daniels is living by again with “The Paper,” Peacock’s comedy he co-created with Michael Koman about a dying newspaper and its disjointed staff set in the world of “The Office.”
It is one of three new mockumentaries from Universal TV this year, including returning hit “St. Denis Medical” and cheerleading competition comedy “Stumble.” The trio arrives as “The Office” turns 20 and remains one of the most-streamed series on Peacock, alongside its mockumentary sister series “Parks and Recreation,” which Daniels also co-created.
In the years since those series reigned supreme, mockumentaries have thrived across television with Emmy winners “Abbott Elementary” and “Modern Family” serving as pillars for ABC, and “What We Do in the Shadows” doing the same for FX.
But Universal has a 20-year reputation to uphold in this space and isn’t greenlighting just any new take on the format to keep the torch burning.
“We feel pressure to make sure that we’re not the ones who blow it,” says Jim Donnelly, Universal TV’s executive vice president for comedy development. “The worst thing is for people to speak fondly of the olden days but think we’re not doing a good job anymore. We don’t make decisions on what shows we develop or put on the air based on whether they are a mockumentary or not. It just so happens that we work with a lot of creators and writers who are extremely good at it, and those often end up being the best shows.”
Two of those creators — Daniels and “St. Denis Medical” showrunner Eric Ledgin — have overall deals at Universal Television.
While audiences have gotten wise to the format of mockumentaries, Donnelly says the endurance of the genre has always depended on the unique connection between the characters and the audience, thanks to those in-world cameras.
“Viewers come to shows like these because they want to be a part of something,” he says. “They came to ‘Cheers’ because they wanted a place where everybody knew your name and here, you have these really well-drawn characters who are basically in dialogue with you, the audience member.”
That direct-to-camera talking head, a cornerstone of the mockumentary’s satirical take on documentaries, is just another evolution of television comedy, and one that Ledgin embraces.
“It’s sort of become the modern laugh track in a way,” says Ledgin. “We all railed against the laugh track and decided we didn’t need to be told when to laugh. But I feel like the ‘look to camera’ is a bit of a return to that. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. You want to have that connection of knowing someone else gets what’s funny about this, just like you do.”
Despite being a tried-and-true hit, mockumentaries are always an evolving tool in the hands of their creators. Ledgin went into Season 2 with a mission to steady his cameras on screen. “I think I’m supposed to want more shakiness as someone who is trying to be a cool auteur or showrunner,” he says. “But the truth is, people have a lot of tricks to keep the camera pretty steady these days, so maybe we don’t need to make it so janky.”
Daniels, meanwhile, wants to get back to his roots. “Over the years, people have made life a little easier for themselves, and the mockumentary has gotten less strict,” he says. “One of the things Michael and I are trying to do with ‘The Paper’ is go back to a stricter form where you don’t have cameras in people’s bedrooms or have cameras anticipating where a character would go when that character wouldn’t know that themselves.”
Evolution is necessary for the characters as well. The staff of Dunder Mifflin, who were still apprehensive of cameras filming the insanity of their workdays, aren’t the same as the reporters of the Toledo Truth Teller, looking to raise awareness of their dying institution in “The Paper.”
“One of the things that makes the genre age well is that how a person imagines themselves being seen today is different from the way they imagined themselves 20 years ago,” Koman says. “Everybody’s more conscious of what they look like on television because of reality TV and the internet. A normal person will be much savvier about the consequences of what might happen if they were caught on camera doing something.”
But even within the genre, there is room for variation. “Stumble” is a high-flying example of it. Co-creator Jeff Astrof’s first mockumentary for NBC, “Trial & Error,” was inspired by true crime documentaries like “The Staircase.”
“There was a steep learning curve with ‘Trial & Error,’” he says. “Then I just fell in love with the format because there’s so many jokes you can get in it, and there is an intimacy with the audience because you’re laughing with them.”
With “Stumble,” co-created with his sister Liz Astrof, they are sending up Netflix’s docuseries “Cheer” about the intense world of competition cheerleading, told through coach Monica Aldama, who is an executive producer on the new comedy. Here, it’s Jenn Lyon’s Courtney Potter, who is pursuing her 15th championship with a ragtag squad at a Midwest community college.
Where “The Paper” and “St. Denis” want to sit in the everyday lives of their characters, “Stumble” wants to mirror the familiar experience of a sports documentary and build to the on-your-feet climax people expect.
“What we loved so much about ‘Cheer’ is that everyone watching was standing at the TV like it’s a sporting event,” Liz says. “You want them to win Daytona so badly because these kids came from really tough backgrounds and this saved them. We want these characters to be ones you care about. We said in our pitch that we want people to be standing up with the TV waiting to see if they win.”
If mockumentaries are meant to be slices of life — unvarnished in all its funny forms — Universal is steering toward the softer side of what living looks like today with its new trio.
“For these kids, this is the most important time in their lives; it is life and death to them,” Astrof says of “Stumble.” “But if you pull it out just a little bit, it’s just a flyover city in a flyover state. That’s what gives these shows their charm. It’s how much people care about something. I think people want to watch people care about something.”
“The essence of the mockumentary to me is that you don’t have to know exactly what you are going to get when you start,” says the creator. “There are character rules and situational rules but just like a basketball game, you don’t know what is going to happen.”
With fine-tuned ensembles at the ready, there’s a freedom in mockumentaries; even with a script, cameras are always bound to catch, and inspire, the unexpected. It’s a creed Daniels is living by again with “The Paper,” Peacock’s comedy he co-created with Michael Koman about a dying newspaper and its disjointed staff set in the world of “The Office.”
It is one of three new mockumentaries from Universal TV this year, including returning hit “St. Denis Medical” and cheerleading competition comedy “Stumble.” The trio arrives as “The Office” turns 20 and remains one of the most-streamed series on Peacock, alongside its mockumentary sister series “Parks and Recreation,” which Daniels also co-created.
In the years since those series reigned supreme, mockumentaries have thrived across television with Emmy winners “Abbott Elementary” and “Modern Family” serving as pillars for ABC, and “What We Do in the Shadows” doing the same for FX.
But Universal has a 20-year reputation to uphold in this space and isn’t greenlighting just any new take on the format to keep the torch burning.
“We feel pressure to make sure that we’re not the ones who blow it,” says Jim Donnelly, Universal TV’s executive vice president for comedy development. “The worst thing is for people to speak fondly of the olden days but think we’re not doing a good job anymore. We don’t make decisions on what shows we develop or put on the air based on whether they are a mockumentary or not. It just so happens that we work with a lot of creators and writers who are extremely good at it, and those often end up being the best shows.”
Two of those creators — Daniels and “St. Denis Medical” showrunner Eric Ledgin — have overall deals at Universal Television.
While audiences have gotten wise to the format of mockumentaries, Donnelly says the endurance of the genre has always depended on the unique connection between the characters and the audience, thanks to those in-world cameras.
“Viewers come to shows like these because they want to be a part of something,” he says. “They came to ‘Cheers’ because they wanted a place where everybody knew your name and here, you have these really well-drawn characters who are basically in dialogue with you, the audience member.”
That direct-to-camera talking head, a cornerstone of the mockumentary’s satirical take on documentaries, is just another evolution of television comedy, and one that Ledgin embraces.
“It’s sort of become the modern laugh track in a way,” says Ledgin. “We all railed against the laugh track and decided we didn’t need to be told when to laugh. But I feel like the ‘look to camera’ is a bit of a return to that. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. You want to have that connection of knowing someone else gets what’s funny about this, just like you do.”
Despite being a tried-and-true hit, mockumentaries are always an evolving tool in the hands of their creators. Ledgin went into Season 2 with a mission to steady his cameras on screen. “I think I’m supposed to want more shakiness as someone who is trying to be a cool auteur or showrunner,” he says. “But the truth is, people have a lot of tricks to keep the camera pretty steady these days, so maybe we don’t need to make it so janky.”
Daniels, meanwhile, wants to get back to his roots. “Over the years, people have made life a little easier for themselves, and the mockumentary has gotten less strict,” he says. “One of the things Michael and I are trying to do with ‘The Paper’ is go back to a stricter form where you don’t have cameras in people’s bedrooms or have cameras anticipating where a character would go when that character wouldn’t know that themselves.”
Evolution is necessary for the characters as well. The staff of Dunder Mifflin, who were still apprehensive of cameras filming the insanity of their workdays, aren’t the same as the reporters of the Toledo Truth Teller, looking to raise awareness of their dying institution in “The Paper.”
“One of the things that makes the genre age well is that how a person imagines themselves being seen today is different from the way they imagined themselves 20 years ago,” Koman says. “Everybody’s more conscious of what they look like on television because of reality TV and the internet. A normal person will be much savvier about the consequences of what might happen if they were caught on camera doing something.”
But even within the genre, there is room for variation. “Stumble” is a high-flying example of it. Co-creator Jeff Astrof’s first mockumentary for NBC, “Trial & Error,” was inspired by true crime documentaries like “The Staircase.”
“There was a steep learning curve with ‘Trial & Error,’” he says. “Then I just fell in love with the format because there’s so many jokes you can get in it, and there is an intimacy with the audience because you’re laughing with them.”
With “Stumble,” co-created with his sister Liz Astrof, they are sending up Netflix’s docuseries “Cheer” about the intense world of competition cheerleading, told through coach Monica Aldama, who is an executive producer on the new comedy. Here, it’s Jenn Lyon’s Courtney Potter, who is pursuing her 15th championship with a ragtag squad at a Midwest community college.
Where “The Paper” and “St. Denis” want to sit in the everyday lives of their characters, “Stumble” wants to mirror the familiar experience of a sports documentary and build to the on-your-feet climax people expect.
“What we loved so much about ‘Cheer’ is that everyone watching was standing at the TV like it’s a sporting event,” Liz says. “You want them to win Daytona so badly because these kids came from really tough backgrounds and this saved them. We want these characters to be ones you care about. We said in our pitch that we want people to be standing up with the TV waiting to see if they win.”
If mockumentaries are meant to be slices of life — unvarnished in all its funny forms — Universal is steering toward the softer side of what living looks like today with its new trio.
“For these kids, this is the most important time in their lives; it is life and death to them,” Astrof says of “Stumble.” “But if you pull it out just a little bit, it’s just a flyover city in a flyover state. That’s what gives these shows their charm. It’s how much people care about something. I think people want to watch people care about something.”