Peacock made the most of the Olympics buzz earlier in August with the premiere of Mr. Throwback, a new mockumentary comedy from the former Happy Endings team that stars basketball legend Steph Curry himself, as well as Champaign ILL's Adam Pally and Saturday Night Live's Ego Nwodim. Executive producers David Caspe, Matthew Libman, and Daniel Libman said that it was both “a total dream” and “annoying” (for a fun reason) to work with Curry on the sitcom, and already were hoping for a second season when I spoke with them ahead of the first season premiere earlier in the 2024 TV schedule.
While Steph Curry starred in the sitcom, Adam Pally carried most of the action while playing the childhood best friend of Steph who gets in over his head while trying to use the Golden State Warrior to make a quick buck. Now, nearly one month after it debuted on Peacock for subscribers, the comedy is still waiting on renewal news, so I looked back at the executive producers' thoughts on Season 2, that running joke about Michael Jordan, and Steph Curry as a sitcom star.
The Story Behind That Michael Jordan Joke
The six-episode season packed in a bunch of fun cameos, including former Chicago Bulls point guard and current Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. The basketball legend appears in the first and third episodes, the latter of which includes a running joke about being punched in the face by Michael Jordan. In what I still think is one of the funniest moments of Mr. Throwback, Kerr says this while the fictionalized version of Steph Curry is in a slump:
It was a nightmare. I mean, I'd never seen Steph like that before. Or any player, for that matter. Of course, back in my day, if you so much as pouted, Michael Jordan would punch you in the face.
If you weren't familiar with Kerr and Jordan's mutual days with the Chicago Bulls in the '90s, the running joke about MJ punching him in the face might have sounded like a total fiction made up for laughs. In fact, that did indeed happen during practice. It didn't cause any bad blood between the teammates, but the Mr. Throwback joke was based on a real event.
During my interview with the executive producers, David Caspe shared:
We're huge Steve Kerr fans. We're from Chicago, so we grew up loving him. That was incredible to get him in the show, and to get him joking about Michael Jordan is the dream come true for us. That was great.
Steve Kerr was only one of many basketball greats to make cameos in the first season of Mr. Throwback, with fellow former NBA players Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal appearing as well in a clip from Inside the NBA that was scripted specifically for the show. After getting these and more basketball legends as well as comedy stars like Jay Leno and Nick Kroll to appear, do the EPs have a wish list for a second season? Daniel Libman named some dream picks:
Michael Jordan, Anthony Edwards, Draymond Green.
Normally those names would seem a little too big to fit into a streaming sitcom, but nothing truly feels off the table after who was packed into Season 1. Michael Jordan also is no stranger to playing a fictional version of himself thanks to his starring role in Space Jam, and how great would it be to see the continuation of the running joke about punching Steve Kerr in the face from MJ himself?
What About Season 2?
The first season of Mr. Throwback ran for only just six episodes, but not because there was only one short season's worth of material. The finale leaves the door very open for the story to continue; when I spoke with the EPs in early August, I asked what it would take for Mr. Throwback to get a second season. The comedy veterans responded:
- Daniel Libman: "Just a yes from the people who are in charge, and possibly a huge blast from CinemaBlend, telling everyone to watch."
- David Capse: "Please tell people to watch it. That’s how we get another season. "
- Matthew Libman: "Hopefully people watch it and love it and talk about it. Steph would love to do more. We would love to do more. Hopefully, people feel the same way.
While it remains to be seen what the future holds (or doesn't hold) for the Mr. Throwback team, it's worth checking out whether you're a basketball fan or not. It also doesn't take too long to binge-watch, coming in at around three hours total. There's a reason why this sitcom is seen as proof that Peacock is home of some of streaming's best sitcoms.
What Was It Like Working With Steph Curry As An Actor?
Steph Curry was obviously a huge name before Mr. Throwback, but not because of his work in television, and not all superstar athletes can also hold their own in a medium like scripted comedy. According to the EPs, Curry simply revealed one more thing he's good at. I asked if there was any surprise that the basketball player could deliver laughs alongside stars like Adam Pally and Ego Nwodim, and David Caspe said:
He was just incredible. I don't know that 'surprise' is the right word, because we definitely just were like, 'Well, this guy's good at everything he's ever done, so he'll probably be good at this.' But then he was even better than we could have imagined. From the first second, including the table read that he came to, he was just as good as any of the other actors. We just acted as if on our end, and just threw him lines, threw him changes, threw him tons of dialogue, and he just continually knocked it out of the park, to use a sports metaphor.
Matthew Libman agreed with Caspe, and added his own insight on what Curry was able to bring to the show that wasn't even scripted:
I would just add to that that we cast the show with almost exclusively unbelievably gifted, high-level improvisers, and he was not only able to improvise at their level, but probably has a dozen or so of his own improvs that made it into the cut. For a guy who's that good of a basketball player, like a once-in-a-gazillion-years basketball player, to then also be funny enough to hang with the legends of comedy is pretty remarkable. And we didn't do it just to do it. They were truly hilarious things that we kept in that were his.
There's no saying how well Steph Curry would do in a scripted project where he's not playing a fictionalized version of himself, but Mr. Throwback was also able to feature some real NBA clips of Curry's career with the Golden State Warriors.
What About The NBA Access?
From the moment that the first trailer for Mr. Throwback hit the web, it was clear that the team behind the Peacock series had access to and was able to incorporate footage from real NBA games. I asked the producers if there were any challenges in getting to use so much NBA footage, and Matthew Libman explained:
No, not really. Thankfully, Stephen Curry is very well liked by the NBA. Having him around, whether it's that type of thing or being able to shoot on certain locations in San Francisco. Not surprisingly, when you're working with Steph Curry, doors fly open that normally wouldn't open at all. So it was great. That being said, the studio and the network have a relationship with the NBA. It was great.
Daniel Libman spoke up to add that "the NBA was very generous," and I think any viewers can vouch that having that real NBA footage really helped the mockumentary feel more like a documentary. David Capse elaborated:
It was all sort of happening as we were going. We made the show very, very quickly. We actually just wrapped June 30, and we're airing in three days. That's very quick turnaround, and we had a great writers room and a great director, DP, production designer, costume designer. Everyone was so talented and great, and we all just hit the ground running and working, mach speed. We would write things and try to get them, and sometimes we'd get them, or we'd get someone else, and then we'd switch it to that. It was a very fluid production, but a blast.
Considering that Steph Curry had to find time to film Mr. Throwback while also playing for the Golden State Warriors ahead of a trip to Paris to play for Team USA, it's no wonder that the show came together "very, very quickly" with talented improvisers like Adam Pally and Ego Nwodim on board.
As a fan of the finished product, I'd say that the whole team stuck the landing with the sitcom, and I truly hope that they get their wish for a second season. You can find the full first season of Mr. Throwback streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription now.
