Nothing about FXX's comedy Dave was expected or predictable. For one, the show is way funnier than most TV series co-created by entertainers from different mediums, while also delivering its fair share of genuinely emotional beats. As well, it boasted some of the most impressive delayed-viewing stats that any TV show has achieved to this point. Oh yeah, and there was also the wedding episode where a panicking Dave openly shit into the shallowest part of a pond. Good. Times.
Co-creator Dave Burd, who also goes by his rapper persona Lil Dicky, talked about that instantly infamous moment during an interview alongside the show's other creator Jeff Schaeffer, of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Brews Brothers fame. In a nutshell, here's what he told Deadline about why he wanted to do the scene, and the presumably horrifying malfunction that happened.
I’ve never seen anyone actually shit on camera. It’s funny, but I’m being serious, it’s groundbreaking, seeing someone actually poop. On the day, we had a machine that took so long to attach to my body, as soon as we started filming, there was someone pushing a lever, and the first time we did it the pipe malfunctioned and there was diarrhea shooting into the air.
Certainly, the reason why everyone gets into the entertainment industry is to patiently wait for the one day where the stars align and one can bear witness to an accidental geyser of fake diarrhea flying through the air. Sure, there's the fame, money and the adoring fanbase, but that's all just neutral-smelling window dressing for the REAL prize, amirite?
On only a slightly more serious note, Dave Burd does have a point in implying that watching someone else poop, on camera or otherwise, is a truly singular experience. I'm not sure that "groundbreaking" is the best description, but then I'm not sure there IS a best description for such a thing. In any case, Dave broke wind and a pond's surface with Episode 9's most socially uncomfortable moment. Sure, that wedding speech from Taylor Misiak's Ally was a heart-hitter, but on a different end of the spectrum than "shitting into nature before a loved one's eyes" was.
Jeff Schaeffer also offered some intentionally loaded words in talking about how they got the scene's central prop correct.
The problem was we realized, it’s not that it doesn’t look real; it doesn’t look like Dave’s. Once we understood that, we were able to massage it and get it into a place where we were happy.
Rather than visually picturing how one would massage doo-doo to make it more pleasing for the eye, check out the behind-the-scenes video FXX put out for that scene.
Though Dave's run on FXX didn't produce very noteworthy numbers for its live Wednesday-night airings, the comedy's delayed-viewing stats were positively massive. For instance, the show's biggest Live + Same Day audience was 295,000 viewers, which came with the episode featuring Justin Bieber, Benny Blanco and Kourtney Kardashian. Meanwhile, Dave boasts an average episode audience of over 5.3 million viewers when On Demand, DVR and streaming. With everything thrown in, Dave is actually the FX brand's most successful comedy yet. (Even more so than It's Always Sunny and Atlanta, amazingly enough.) And it featured its main character dropping an unplanned outdoor deuce. Citizen Kane now lives in Dave's shadow.
Dave is currently done with Season 1, but it quickly earned a Season 2 renewal from FXX, with new episodes hopefully coming in 2021. Find the entire first season streaming on Hulu, and to see what other new and returning shows are hitting your screens soon, head to our Summer 2020 TV premiere schedule.
