Spoilers ahead for the Season 3 premiere of Night Court, called "The Judge's Boyfriend's Dad."
Night Court is finally back in the 2024 TV schedule to deliver on the cliffhanger from the Season 2 finale ahead of the 2025 TV schedule, which had raised the possibility that Dan (John Larroquette) was actually the long-lost father of Jake (Ryan Hansen), Abby's (Melissa Rauch) new boyfriend. Season 3 picked up with Abby stressed about keeping the possible secret, and hijinks ensued when she had to rule out if she and Jake were secret siblings. I spoke with both Larroquette and Hansen, and the Veronica Mars cast alum had the sweetest reaction to learning what the Emmy-winner said about him.
It's still not clear if Dan is Jake's biological dad, but when I spoke with John Larroquette during NBC's Night Court press junket, I asked for his thoughts on Ryan Hansen being cast as the person who might be his secret son for the Season 2 finale cliffhanger. (The Season 2 finale is available streaming with a Peacock subscription.) Larroquette responded:
Being an executive producer on the show, I'm pretty much aware of all the areas that we're going to be going into, and Dan Rubin and I talked a lot about it. As far as the character, when Ryan first appeared as the HR fellow in that episode, he has great comic timing and he's a very handsome fellow and fun to be around. He's a real player. I learned more about him, actually, from my youngest son, Benjamin, who's also the composer of Night Court, because he was a real fan of his on Party Down, so he clued me in and said 'You gotta watch him.' So I watched his work there and became a fan of his as well.
Not only did John Larroquette have high praise of Ryan Hansen for his work on the set of Night Court, but he even became a fan of him outside of the NBC sitcom due to his time in the Party Down cast. I had the chance to chat with Hansen, and after he jokingly asked if Larroquette remembered his name, I shared the compliments that the Night Court star/EP had dropped. He immediately smiled and responded:
Oh, what a guy! I'll take it! Thanks, Dad... maybe.
Being excited to hear praise from John Larroquette didn't translate to Ryan Hansen dropping any spoilers about whether Dan truly is Jake's dad, so fans will have to wait for the next episode for the answer to that question. He did have high praise for Larroquette, though, saying this about getting to sync up their mannerisms for some of the moments that truly alarmed Abby:
I look up to John so much anyway. I look at his career and his comic ability. I mean, he's won four Emmys for this one show, so I'm studying him anyway, and then get the chance to be father and son maybe, and have these certain things [in common]. So it came pretty naturally, but we definitely talked about, like, 'Okay, I want to be doing this, you do that' type of thing. There was a conversation about it, but it came very natural, because I'm watching him anyway, very closely, and I look up to him so much.
Who wouldn't look up to a winner of multiple Emmys with the kind of sitcom success that few actors achieve over decades of work? It remains to be seen if Larroquette and Hansen will work together as father and son as Season 3 continues, or if everything was a misunderstanding that stressed Abby out over nothing.
As it turns out, Hansen couldn't have spoiled the cliffhanger resolution even if he'd wanted to for some time. When asked if he'd known the answer to the paternity question when he filmed the Season 2 finale, he shared:
No! In fact, I think it was because it's... a two-parter, I didn't know until the the second episode [of Season 3]. So I was dying to know too. I wanted to know! I was shocked and surprised by the outcome.
Fans will find out if they too are "shocked and surprised" about whether or not Dan is Jake's father with the next new episode of Night Court, airing on Tuesday, November 26 at 8:30 p.m. ET on NBC following St. Denis Medical. There's a lot to look forward to even beyond the two-part premiere of Season 3, including more of what Wendie Malick described as "bad chemistry" between Julianne and Dan and another Big Bang Theory reunion for Melissa Rauch.
