Co-star and co-creator of the groundbreaking TV show Broad City, Abbi Jacobson, joins guest host, Dylan Marron, LIVE on the TED Conference stage.
Abbi Jacobson:
Improv was a really good base for me in the way in which I create now, which is, I think I like showing the flaws. You’re seeing every time I mess up.
Speaker 2:
From the Chat Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. For 18 years, Debbie Millman has been talking with designers and other creative people about what they do, how they got to be who they are and what they’re thinking about and working on. On this episode, Abbi Jacobson talks about the importance of making mistakes in the creative process.
Abbi Jacobson:
Listen, I love Broad City and I love what we’ve put out into the world, but we messed up a lot too.
Debbie Millman:
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Debbie Millman:
This is Debbie Millman, and I’m back with a new season of Design Matters. Thank you for your patience during the break. And I hope you enjoyed the archival shows we put in the rotation. In the meantime, I sent my new book into the world. If you’re interested, it’s called Why Design Matters: Conversations With The World’s Most Creative People. I’m excited to get back to having those conversations. And I was excited to go in person to this year’s TED Conference to interview Abbi Jacobson, the co-star and co-creator of the breaking TV show, Broad City, and author and illustrator of the book, I Might Regret This.
Debbie Millman:
But, as luck would have it, I got COVID and couldn’t go. Fortunately, the show did go on with my friend and fellow podcaster and writer, Dylan Marron, stepping in for me as my guest host, Dylan is an actor, writer and activist. You may have heard his voice work as Carlos in the podcast, Welcome To The Night Vale. He has also hosted his own podcast, Conversations With People Who Hate Me, which he also turned into a marvelous book of the same title. Dylan spoke to Abbi Jacobson in front of the live TED audience in Vancouver.
Dylan Marron:
Let us begin friends, angels, kings. I am so, so, so excited to bring this person up to the stage. You know her as the co-creator and co-star of the incredible television show, Broad City. She is the author of the essay collection, I Might Regret This. And she is the executive producer and star of the upcoming television adaptation of A League of Their Own. Please welcome Abbi Jacobson.
Abbi Jacobson:
Hi. Hi. Hi.
Dylan Marron:
Hi honey. Welcome to the stage.
Abbi Jacobson:
Thanks. This is cool.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. How are you doing?
Abbi Jacobson:
I’m doing good. How are you?
Dylan Marron:
I’m good. You look amazing.
Abbi Jacobson:
You look amazing.
Dylan Marron:
Great. Okay. I just said it for the compliment back.
Abbi Jacobson:
I know. I know you did.
Dylan Marron:
I ignored… I was like, I’ll say whatever [crosstalk 00:04:29].
Abbi Jacobson:
You do look amazing though.
Dylan Marron:
Thank you.
Abbi Jacobson:
I mean it.
Dylan Marron:
And that’s what matters. Okay. You’re not a stranger to TED.
Abbi Jacobson:
No, I’m not.
Dylan Marron:
Take us there.
Abbi Jacobson:
It’s very bizarre for me to be sitting on any stage here with that. My first job in New York was uploading a TED talk for a company that TED hired. It was two guys and me and I uploaded TED talks in 2006.
Dylan Marron:
Whoa.
Abbi Jacobson:
And tracked the analytics of those talks.
Dylan Marron:
How were the analytics?
Abbi Jacobson:
They’re were good.
Dylan Marron:
Okay. Congratulations.
Abbi Jacobson:
They were pretty solid analytics. I was not great at my job and I didn’t work there that long, but I have a deep history of TED and my dad used to come very early on. He was an OG [TEDster 00:05:21].
Dylan Marron:
Wow. And how did that job end?
Abbi Jacobson:
I was fired.
Dylan Marron:
Okay.
Abbi Jacobson:
I was fired.
Dylan Marron:
Okay. And now take that, here we are.
Abbi Jacobson:
Here we are. Guys, you never know.
Dylan Marron:
If you’re fired from TED, you can create an amazing television show on Comedy Central and be here.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes, it was meant to happen that way.
Dylan Marron:
Abbi, my love, my friend. We’re dating now. No. The fact checkers start spiraling.
Abbi Jacobson:
This is our announcement.
Dylan Marron:
This is our announcement. We are dating.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yep.
Dylan Marron:
I want to take you back to the ’90s.
Abbi Jacobson:
Oh, okay.
Dylan Marron:
Okay. The Bodyguard is the movie of the moment.
Abbi Jacobson:
Okay, yep.
Dylan Marron:
There is a young Abbi Jacobson. Okay, picture her. We love her. She’s writing a letter to Lorne Michaels. What?
Abbi Jacobson:
Oh man. You’ve done some-
Dylan Marron:
I did the research.
Abbi Jacobson:
Okay. Yes, I wrote.
Dylan Marron:
But, okay. She’s writing a letter to Lorne Michaels, the head of Saturday Night Live. Tell us what that letter says.
Abbi Jacobson:
Studio 8H.
Dylan Marron:
You addressed it to Studio 8H?
Abbi Jacobson:
I think I did.
Dylan Marron:
Okay, great.
Abbi Jacobson:
I was really, really into SNL. I think my parents, that was show I was sometimes allowed to watch as a kid. And that’s all I wanted to do. Gilda Radner was the person for me. Gilda Live aired on Comedy Central, which is very full circle, because my show ended up being on Comedy Central. All these full circle moments.
Dylan Marron:
Full circles. TED, get fired, come back, Gilda.
Abbi Jacobson:
But I wrote Lorne a letter that was so sort of not aggressive, but maybe a little bit. That was like, “You better watch out because I’m going to be there.” And I think I made a bet with my brother that I was going to get on SNL by the time I was 20.
Dylan Marron:
Wow.
Abbi Jacobson:
And I haven’t paid him that $100 yet. I was probably 10.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. When you’re 10, 20 is the oldest age.
Abbi Jacobson:
20, and a $100 is the most money. And the oldest.
Dylan Marron:
Yes, rich and the oldest. You were like, “I’m going to be on it.” But by the age of 20. Wow. That’s precocious and I’m proud of you for that.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes. It didn’t happen, so…
Dylan Marron:
But a lot of amazing things happened. We’re going to get to it. How do you go from writing that letter to Lorne, a threatening letter that could have gotten you arrested. And then you go to Mica, the Maryland Institute College of Art. Those words don’t… Institute College of Art kind of-
Abbi Jacobson:
There’s a missing O.
Dylan Marron:
Yes.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes, you’re right.
Dylan Marron:
A strong missing O. I Googled it so many times because I was like, I must be getting the wrong pages.
Abbi Jacobson:
It’s like a throw away [crosstalk 00:08:14].
Dylan Marron:
But you went to Mica.
Abbi Jacobson:
I went to Mica.
Dylan Marron:
What brought you there?
Abbi Jacobson:
Okay. My parents are both artists, so I grew up in a household of visual art. My mom was a potter growing up and my dad was a graphic designer, hence him being an early TEDster. And my brother actually now run… and my dad have a design firm together in Philadelphia. And so, that was the obvious choice, was the arts. But when I was a kid, as I said, I was really into SNL and comedy and I used to do… I’m going to take us around. I was very into Mike Myers, especially his Coffee Talk. It was Linda Richman based on his mother-in-law, and I used to do that in school a lot. And I took acting classes, but like this, what I do now, was never really a thing I thought was a possible career, because no one I knew did any… What is that trajectory? Just was not in my mind that this was a possibility. The arts, it’s so easy to become a successful artist, so I just…
Dylan Marron:
Easy path [crosstalk 00:09:28].
Abbi Jacobson:
It’s maybe a harder… Yeah. But I was very good at drawing and that was all I did as a kid. And I could see the results in school. My public high school outside Philly had a really great art program. And I was always in that department with those teachers and they took a liking to me. And so that trajectory seemed like the way to go. And I’d looked at a lot of schools, but Mica in Baltimore wasn’t that far from Philly. And it seemed like it had a great program.
Dylan Marron:
Yeah. And you went.
Abbi Jacobson:
I went. I was general fine arts, so mostly drawing and painting. But then they had just started their video department.
Dylan Marron:
Oh. Did you take classes?
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes.
Dylan Marron:
Wow.
Abbi Jacobson:
And so I was one of the first video minors there, but I just ended up doing these characters that would’ve just been on SNL. But-
Dylan Marron:
If you had gotten on by the age of 20, won that $100.
Abbi Jacobson:
But at Mica it was so interesting. They projected them in the gallery. It was this interesting thing. I moved to New York after that and kept going in the acting world, but I was doing it already just in a little bit of like a higher brow way.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. It’s always like Cindy Sherman. When you get a Cindy Sherman you’re like, “Oh, am I smart enough to understand this?” Whereas if you saw it on YouTube, you’d be like, “I get it.”
Abbi Jacobson:
I know. It has a very high low to it.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. Whenever I go to MoMA I’m like, “I’m dumb”. That’s my takeaway when I see fine art.
Abbi Jacobson:
Well, not to pitch my own podcast-
Dylan Marron:
Good setup.
Abbi Jacobson:
Or maybe you were leading there. But I did a podcast with MoMA,
Dylan Marron:
Piece of Work.
Abbi Jacobson:
A piece of… Well, you know it.
Dylan Marron:
With WNYC, honey, co-production. I know. I did my research.
Abbi Jacobson:
This is hilarious. We just met, but I love it.
Dylan Marron:
Yes, we just met.
Abbi Jacobson:
The whole intention was making art accessible to people that feel like they don’t understand what it is.
Dylan Marron:
Okay, I need listen to that podcast.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes. And it’s just approaching it with curiosity and it was pretty incredible working with MoMA. I got to go in to the museum after hours.
Dylan Marron:
Wow.
Abbi Jacobson:
It was pretty cool.
Dylan Marron:
Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Yes. You had to sleepover at the museum.
Abbi Jacobson:
Oh. I was like, “I don’t understand that person.”
Dylan Marron:
I’m just saying words and you’re like, “Okay, Dylan is unwell.” Okay. But after college you move to New York for the Atlantic Acting School.
Abbi Jacobson:
I did. Which is Mamet’s and William H. Macy’s acting school.
Dylan Marron:
Yeah. You took what you learned from the videos and you were like, “I like this feeling. I’m going to go towards it.”
Abbi Jacobson:
I think it was always what I wanted to do as a kid, and then felt that was impossible. And then my video stuff got… I got some good feedback at Mica from it. And I was like, “Let me just go for this.” And I moved up to New York and went to Atlantic theater conservatory program for about a week.
Dylan Marron:
Can you take us through that week? We have to hear.
Abbi Jacobson:
It’s such a serious place. Listen, I still am very interested in the art of acting, but I definitely like how I came to it through comedy. But this was full on. It was so serious. Every moment felt very heavy. I was very in my head and I know anyone that’s acting like repetition and scene study and analyzing a scene and like, what are you really saying when you’re saying this? And all very valid if that’s how your mind works. It was paralyzing to me.
Dylan Marron:
I totally get it.
Abbi Jacobson:
And I quit. I had to make a decision. When you sign up for this long thing and then they’re like, “You have seven days to… If you don’t like it, you’ve got to do it or you’re going to lose your deposit.” And I was like, “I don’t think this is for me.” And at the time I’d moved up to New York with my friend from college, Jess, and I was going through it. And she was like, “Have you ever been to the UCB, the Upright Citizens for gay theater in New York? I think based on your video stuff, you would like it.” And I hadn’t. And I went by myself to see an improv show. I have no idea what show it was, what they were even doing, but I was just fully taken. And I was like, “That.”
Dylan Marron:
That’s what I want to do.
Abbi Jacobson:
Not this, that.
Dylan Marron:
Just because I’m curious, because I think stories are so simple in retrospective narration. And I left the Atlantic and walked right over to the UCB, and it’s like, no, there was terror in that time.
Abbi Jacobson:
No, I had a full breakdown on 15th Street, Ninth Avenue. I know the corner well.
Dylan Marron:
In the vicinity of the Atlantic Acting School.
Abbi Jacobson:
Right. Right near nearby. Nope. I felt, oh I moved to New York to do this. And I guess I can’t. I even said this to you 20 minutes ago.
Dylan Marron:
Wow.
Abbi Jacobson:
Where I was like, I am an actor, but like I’m not. That’s not what I… But I fully am an actor and I can own it, because I think that partially because maybe that experience. But I always go writer first. Makes me feel way more comfortable.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. You never say artist? You never say I’m-
Abbi Jacobson:
Sometimes I say artist. M little name tag has a lot of things on it, because I wasn’t sure how to label myself.
Dylan Marron:
Yes, same. On my IRS forms, it’s a new thing each year. It’s whatever earned me enough money that year, I’m like, “Yes, writer.”
Abbi Jacobson:
Exactly.
Dylan Marron:
We talked about this, but people identify you by the software that you use, to be called a YouTuber [crosstalk 00:15:45].
Abbi Jacobson:
Exactly.
Dylan Marron:
No, that’s just the software I use.
Abbi Jacobson:
Exactly.
Dylan Marron:
Okay. This next part of the story, many of us know well, if you’re not up on the Broad City loar.
Abbi Jacobson:
I don’t know if this crowd knows well,
Dylan Marron:
No one knows this at all and we’re about to…
Abbi Jacobson:
Just going to take a long shot. Not sure this crowd…
Dylan Marron:
Blank faces of [crosstalk 00:16:05].
Abbi Jacobson:
I know. It’s like, okay.
Dylan Marron:
Just shapes that they’re seeing on stage. Okay. This next part of the story I know well, and I would like to…
Abbi Jacobson:
There’s a couple. I can feel there’s a couple.
Dylan Marron:
There’s a few Broad City heads.
Abbi Jacobson:
It’s okay. It’s okay.
Dylan Marron:
Go off Broad City. Well, I’m a Broad City head. I was like, “I know this next part of the story well.” And I’ll just say, on a personal note, I was coming up around the time that Broad City was transitioning from web series to television show. And I remember that offered such a beacon of hope for me and so many friends because it was like… I don’t know. There was this era of possibility in that you could make something that you believed in and do it so
Abbi Jacobson:
Well, I love hearing that. That’s awesome.
Dylan Marron:
It was really, really cool. But we know this next part of… I know this next part of the story well, which is that you meet Ilana Glazer at McManus, a bar frequented by UCBM provisors. And here’s how you write about this moment. “It feels false to look back on a moment, a conversation and see an inciting incident of your own life’s movie, like a formulaic Hollywood script broken down, beat-by-beat in a screenwriting handbook. But those handbooks sell so many copies for a reason. It was right there at the corner of the bar at McManus that my life changed completely.” Were you looking for a collaborator?
Abbi Jacobson:
Maybe I didn’t know I was. I was still very new in this community in New York that I had just been telling you, now when you look at that community and who sprouted out of it, it’s pretty incredible. But I think I was looking for collaborators. I didn’t know I was looking for my person in that way at the time, but it felt like that. Ilana and I met in an improv practice group. When you…
Dylan Marron:
You got to share what that is.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes, it’s fascinating. Lean in. Basically the UCB and a lot of these other improv theaters around the country that people have come out of, you’re ultimately trying to get in a group to play on stage. You want to be in a show that’s on the main stage. And before you can do that, you really have to practice. And so, all these little practice groups were formed of friends that came out of classes and we would perform at little theaters around town that we would pay for. And host shows and it’d be three or four improv teams, and we’d hand out shots to the audience. And some of the shows were free and it was just hustling. It was hustling to perform and to work this muscle.
Abbi Jacobson:
because really good improv is done by people who have worked at it, so that when they get out on stage, they’re not thinking about it. And I write about this in the book, which is exactly the opposite of what I experienced at Atlantic, which was so in my head. And suddenly I found this place that was all about getting to a point where you were not even in your head at all. You’re operating pure gut, pure instinct with a group of collaborators. And I guess that was ultimately what I was yearning for. And I had been on this team for a couple weeks and my friend, Tim Martin, invited these two new people he met in a class to the team, Ilana Glazer and her brother Eliot Glazer. And I thought that Ilana was Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development because they look very much alike.
Abbi Jacobson:
And I was like, that makes sense that she would be on this. She’s moved to New York. I don’t know. And then we went to McManus as I wrote about, and I’m sitting at the bar and she’s telling me… I didn’t know Alia’s name, so I thought it was Ilana. And she’s telling me about how she grew up on Long Island. And we actually figured out that two of my best friends from Mica she knew. And I was like, this is not Alia. There’s no way. And then we just… I fell in love with her. When you fall in love with a friend, because she was so… If you’ve ever watched our show, which all of you’re going to after.
Dylan Marron:
There’s a binge session that we’re hosting next room. You’re going to miss the rest of the conference.
Abbi Jacobson:
Virtual reality Broad City. There’s an immersive experience.
Dylan Marron:
Okay. Ideas, ideas.
Abbi Jacobson:
Honestly, next year get in touch with me. Then we can do that. It’ll just be me in the room.
Dylan Marron:
You, live. There’s actually no goggles. It’s just you and Ilana live in Broad City.
Abbi Jacobson:
But… Where was I? Just the-
Dylan Marron:
Meeting Ilana. You fell in love with a friend.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yeah. And she was so… We play amplified versions of ourselves on the show and when you get to meet Ilana, even in the show, you’re just… You would’ve not met anyone like her either. And I was just like, “This person makes me different.” And that’s…
Dylan Marron:
Yeah. What’s it like playing an amplified version of yourself? Because I think in your book you… I just want to make sure I’m quoting it correctly, but you say that it was like, there was a good and bad to naming your character Abbi. You play Abbi Abrams, you are Abbi Jacobson. What was navigating the relationship between the two of them like?
Abbi Jacobson:
Yeah. The amplifiedness of playing that character was incredible. Abbi, unlike the version you’re seeing right now, super insecure. Just very rambly. Okay, I’m like that. I’m just like hearing my joke I just said out loud, and then I’m doing it. But all the emotions are outward, like scrambly and rambly and just desperately trying to figure everything out, which I am too. I got to just sort of… I showed the feelings more, I think, than I usually tend to do, which was incredible to do that. I grew up on the show.
Abbi Jacobson:
We started doing the web series in 2009 and stopped doing the TV show in 2019. Is that right? Which was 20 years ago now. But it was a big period of my life and the negative, I wouldn’t even call it bad, but the negative it’s the most… And I write about this too, it’s like the most flattering thing, I think, if people that really found something in the show feel like they really know me. Because it is so much me. But then it is also not, so it’s like this weird mirror and it’s also made me have to figure out myself all over again or something.
Dylan Marron:
Right. It’s like a part of you, but it’s not all of you. And you’re seeing her, but she’s also trapped in Amber from this time of your life where you wrote her.
Abbi Jacobson:
But I’m so happy we went with our names. I was almost Carly.
Dylan Marron:
Oh, okay.
Abbi Jacobson:
That would’ve never worked.
Dylan Marron:
Yes, ever. You guys, you’ll know it when you get the VR experience of Broad City.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes.
Dylan Marron:
Want to go back to two things. One, right before, and then during Broad City, when you’re talking about doing all of that improv, what you’re getting out of that. And as you said, to get good at improv, you just have to do it all the time, over and over. And this is I would say true for every art form. But the privilege you get with that is you get to experience a lot of failure. How is failure involved in your creative process?
Abbi Jacobson:
Oh, that’s a good question.
Dylan Marron:
Okay. Thanks.
Abbi Jacobson:
That’s a good one.
Dylan Marron:
Don’t answer it. Just, we’ll move on. I just want the compliment.
Abbi Jacobson:
Next. Yes. I think that improv was a really good base for me in the way in which I create now, which is, I think I like showing the flaws, especially in the books I’ve made. Some of them were full illustrated books and some had illustrations in them, and I started really loving the idea of you’re seeing every time I mess up. And that’s part of it. The drawing is drawing, you see where I fucked up the hands over here. And I’m so sorry. Am I not… Is that the first time I cursed and am I not supposed to do that?
Dylan Marron:
No, it’s okay. We can bleep and [crosstalk 00:25:16].
Abbi Jacobson:
Okay. I’m surprised it took me that long. But I like showing the flaws and I like seeing the process. And I don’t know, I think it’s all part of it. Especially the writing of a show. Listen, I love Broad City and I love what we put out into the world, but we messed up a lot too. And we did things the wrong way, whether it was stuff you guys never saw on the show running part of it. A lot of people working on a thing, you are inevitably going to make mistakes and learn from them. And I think that that is all part of the creative process and learning from them and trying to acknowledge it, and make it better the next time. And sometimes the failing and it makes it, opens something up in a whole new way in a writer’s room or something. I can’t think of a really good example [crosstalk 00:26:17].
Dylan Marron:
No, I get what you’re saying. It’s just that with improv, the failure is more public or public for the audience members who are there for the shots that you have them.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes. I think, yes, the improv is public depending on where you’re performing improv. It could be 20 people. No, but there’s definitely more public failures I’ve experienced more recently that I think you have to just look at them and try and do better the next time. And the same thing in comedy. Maybe not as with a serious eye, but if the goal is laughter and feeling and you it’s quiet, then you got to figure out how to-
Dylan Marron:
It’s a faster learning product.
Abbi Jacobson:
It’s very quick.
Dylan Marron:
Because there’s that immediate metric. But with improv, the failure is like, “Oh, that scene was a total dud. It’s now wiped. We’re onto the next the next show.”
Abbi Jacobson:
And that is the greatest part about it is like, you have to move past it.
Dylan Marron:
Right. About Broad City, the show going back to the era you were in. I just said what’s very true for me, you guys were such a beacon of hope to so many of us who were like, I also want to have a career in this world. Maybe not even in comedy. Just I want to make stuff. And YouTube presented… You were part of this era of YouTube where Issa Rae was making The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl that turned into the HBO show Insecure. Lena Dunham had been doing a lot of stuff on YouTube that was always referenced every time, Tiny Furniture. Her first feature was talked about. YouTube felt like we’re going to get past the gatekeepers. Were you conscious of that when you guys made Broad City? Because Broad City started as a YouTube series then went to television. Were you conscious of that? Or were you just like, we just want a space to make our work?
Abbi Jacobson:
We were both on these teams and taking classes at the theater, trying to get on the stage. And we felt in hanging out and whenever we stepped out together, that that dynamic was so unique and had legs to it and we just made each other laugh so much. And we could not get on these teams. We were auditioning. And we were both auditioning for whatever, but hardly could get on the auditions. Ilana and I are both not your typical Hollywood look. Also at the UCB, I don’t know now, but at the time if there’s a team of eight people, one was a woman. And so it would just happened that way somehow. Yeah. So weird. It’s always like that.
Abbi Jacobson:
And [crosstalk 00:29:26] we [inaudible 00:29:28] the world. And so you just knew that there were this limited number of spots and we just couldn’t couldn’t get on. Couldn’t get seen. But the two of us, we just kept being like, “But we know this is funny. We know there’s something here, even if we’re just making it for us. Even if we can take just the power back of creating a thing right away from whoever lets you be on stage.” And so, once we had that conversation, what if we made… We went to a pizza shop. Wait, what if we just make a thing? And then we were off to the races. We had got all these different collaborators from the community. People that wanted to direct, people that wanted to edit, other actors.
Abbi Jacobson:
And it was so small. We would pay little bars. I lived in Astoria in Queens and Ilana lived in Park Slope, and we would pay little bars $50 to shoot in their back little corner for an hour. Stealing stuff on the subway. And it just all of a sudden gave us control. And the YouTube aspect, part of it was like, I’m so not tech savvy. And this was before. I never considered myself a YouTuber. And our web series, like 2,500 people watched our web series. Which is not a lot at all, but it was something we could send our parents to prove that we were actually doing comedy. And we thought it was really good. Something in it was good. And then we just believed in it and just kept making them.
Abbi Jacobson:
And so, we made 35 of them for two years and I don’t even know what the question was. I’m just going.
Dylan Marron:
No, no, no. That was great.
Abbi Jacobson:
Just going with it.
Dylan Marron:
It was the era of YouTube and you completely nailed it.
Abbi Jacobson:
I haven’t talked about this in a while.
Dylan Marron:
I love it.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yeah. And it was so exciting because we would also do these live shows at different venues. Like 92Y Tribeca. RIP. But we would do these live shows where we would screen episodes and I will never forget there… I just was talking about this in the league of their own writer’s room, this feeling. We were part of this short film festival called Iron Mule. And so funny. Hannibal Burris was just there too, who was an old friend of ours, who ended up being in the web series and then in the TV show.
Abbi Jacobson:
But we were just part of this little shorts festival. But a photo of us was in the New York Times and it was this teeny photo. And I will never forget taking the subway to work. And I worked at a job next to Ilana at the time, at a place called Life Booker, which we then used in the show and made her job. I held the New York Times as if everyone on the train knew. And I was like… It is a teeny tiny photo of us on Houseton in front of a mural. And it was like, just that feeling of anything is possible. It was a really big moment. And no one had seen it and it was just like… I don’t know. I think following that feeling, those little… I don’t know where I’m going with that. Guess I am like the character, huh?
Dylan Marron:
Just rambling and rambling. No, it’s perfect. In a broader sense of Broad City is, something I loved so much about it and something that I felt was so fresh is you have these two women who are always building each other up. Building each other up and are obsessed with each other. I remember just breathing this breath of… It was like a breath of fresh air to watch this and just be like, “This feels new and it’s sad that it feels new. And yet it still new.” Did you go in with that mindset to be like, we are going to show the type of female friendships we want to see or was it just more organic?
Abbi Jacobson:
It was more organic. I think it was just, again, it might have been just… I guess we performed on this improv team for two years before where we made the show. I met Ilana in 2007, right after I was uploading all the TED Talks. But it was a newer friendship. It was really based on just the enthusiasm of being around each other, and we just had a lot of fun together. I don’t know if anyone has ever made me laugh like that, and vice versa, I think. And we used direct things in the show that I, yes, it was very organic.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. I want to talk about the last shot of Broad City, which I got chills when I watched it when it aired. And then this morning I couldn’t access my Hulu account because we’re in Canada, so I bought the episode and I watched the end and I got chills.
Abbi Jacobson:
I got an alert.
Dylan Marron:
You got an alert that someone in Vancouver…
Abbi Jacobson:
We get paid directly, right when you watch the episode.
Dylan Marron:
My 2.99 went right to you. And then we met for the first right after that. But I just want to say, it’s a really rare piece of art that can give you the same response that you had when you first saw it, as when you know exactly what you’re about to watch. And then you watch it again. And I got that feeling in my lovely little Airbnb, a few blocks away in Vancouver. Whenever I feel that from any piece of work, I just always feel compelled to thank the people who made it, so thank you.
Abbi Jacobson:
Oh my goodness.
Dylan Marron:
But I want to talk about the last shot because, and this isn’t a spoiler, but Ilana is on the phone with you and then she gets off the call and then she walks down into the Union Square subway station. And so the last shot of Broad City doesn’t actually have either of you in it. But what you see is pairs of friendships, pairs of friends, walking up the stairs, having their own little conversations and then you pull out… I’m literally getting chills right now [crosstalk 00:36:02].
Dylan Marron:
Your last scene. Wow. It’s so good. But you just see pairs of friends talking about things they’ve done the night before. You capture these little worlds of friendships and then you pull out in this big sweeping crane shot of Union Square. You see all these friends passing each other and to me, it spoke so much to the legacy of the show. How would you define the legacy that you want for the show?
Abbi Jacobson:
Oh, wow. I haven’t quite heard anyone talk about the show in a second like that. That means so much to me that you felt that way. That is exactly the intention. I hope the legacy is that whether you have your person or people yet, that they’re there. And that what Ilana and I had, which I think… If you watch it and you felt like you… I’m going to go back and figure out how to say this in a succinct way. Because I’m like, this is overwhelming to me in a way. It’s like that scene was so difficult to come to in a way. How do we end a show. And I’m going to come around to the answer, but we were writing it and actually, Paul W. Downs, who created and is in the show now called Hacks.
Dylan Marron:
Great show.
Abbi Jacobson:
He wrote on the show, the whole five seasons of Broad City too. And we’re struggling. We’re struggling. Paul comes in one morning. He says, “I had a vision.” And it was that.
Dylan Marron:
Wow.
Abbi Jacobson:
We knew we were struggling so much for how the end the Abbi and Ilana, but we wanted it to end bigger and to feel like you were a part of it. I guess the legacy… I don’t know how to answer the legacy, but I guess we always wanted people to feel like they were hanging out with us. And maybe if you didn’t have your Abbi or Ilana, you had us. Or maybe if you did, you can watch it with us. And if you’re in New York, you get it a little bit more, but wherever you are you have your own spots and your own hustles and shenanigans that you get up to. We wanted to end it feeling like you just saw one of millions of these. And maybe if you don’t have that yet you can find it.
Dylan Marron:
Ye. Because I think there can be a sense of loneliness to the city when you don’t find your person, when you don’t find that person. And yes, it was just a pleasure to revisit. Deal with it and congratulations on the 2.99 that is now in your Venmo account.
Abbi Jacobson:
I wish. That would be great. I get a little alert.
Dylan Marron:
You get it. You had the rare privilege of deciding to end a television show, which is incredibly rare in this line of work.
Abbi Jacobson:
I know.
Dylan Marron:
Was it hard to make that decision?
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes. It was really difficult. I think that when I watch a show, as much as I love it, you never want it to go. I’m not going to say a show that I’m talking about, but sometimes it goes a little too long and then you’re like…
Dylan Marron:
Yes.
Abbi Jacobson:
No, I loved it. We never wanted to outstay our welcome. And in the fourth season, we really started… It’s mostly episodic. And so, you can, for the most part, come into any episode. There is an arc to it a little bit in the first three seasons. But in the fourth season we really started to dive a little bit more into the two of them kind of growing. Which is so funny because characters grow. But on a lot of sitcoms, the reason they last for 15 years is because they don’t change that much. And that’s why you can continually do any storyline. And we really wanted to explore them changing.
Abbi Jacobson:
And once we started diving into that, we realized, what happens when two friends that are obsessed with each other and love each other so much, what happens when things have to change a little bit. And that made it so much more emotional for us to write it and it just felt really right. We were contracted for seven years and Kent Alterman who used to run Comedy Central and Viacom fought for us to end it.
Dylan Marron:
Wow.
Abbi Jacobson:
That doesn’t happen.
Dylan Marron:
That’s so good.
Abbi Jacobson:
And then they completely changed their whole thing, but he’s not there anymore. But he really fought to make it and he fought to let us end it when we wanted to, which is very, very rare of a, TV exec.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. I am looking at the time and I’m realizing there’s something we have to talk about what you’re working on now. I’m skipping so many of my middle questions, but you are adapting A League of Their Own.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes.
Dylan Marron:
Talk about-
Abbi Jacobson:
You guys have ever seen that one.
Dylan Marron:
Everyone’s like, “Yes, we love it.”
Abbi Jacobson:
[Crosstalk 00:41:21] great.
Dylan Marron:
What is Broad City? No. A League of Their Own, a 1992 film about the women’s baseball league. Okay. What drew you to that story?
Abbi Jacobson:
Okay. Will Graham, who I created it, with approached me. I was still making Broad City, like 2017. And he said, “I got this idea. I really would love to make a TV version.” And he said, “Do you want to do it with me?” And I was like, “How can I say no to that?” And then we talked a lot about what we would do. It is a TV adaptation, but I like to think of it as a re-imagining, because it’s a lot of people’s favorite movie. And it’s very different. The movie’s over here. You can watch the movie whenever you want. And the TV show will be over here. And so, the movie explores the All American Girls Baseball League, which is great.
Abbi Jacobson:
I love the movie. It’s one of my favorite movies, as a kid and now. It holds up in a lot of ways. Our re-imagining is opening up the lens of women in the 1940s that dreamed of playing baseball. It’s a two-hander. I’m one hand. And I’m what you’re used to in the movie, the All American Girls League. I go and you’ll follow my character in that way. And it’s also about this character, Max, who’s played by Chanté Adams, who’s a black woman. And in the movie, I think you might remember there’s-
Dylan Marron:
That one scene.
Abbi Jacobson:
There’s that one scene-
Dylan Marron:
Where the ball rolls.
Abbi Jacobson:
The ball rolls and a black woman picks it up and chucks it back to Gina Davis, and she’s like, “Ah, wow.”
Dylan Marron:
Yes.
Abbi Jacobson:
And then that’s it.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. And that’s intersectional feminism.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes.
Dylan Marron:
Just the one scene.
Abbi Jacobson:
Will and I got the chance to talk to Penny Marshall who directed the film before she passed away. And we got to ask her all these questions. It wasn’t a very long conversation, but she said… I was trying to nod. I almost did the Penny Marshall impersonation, but I’m not going to do that. But she was like, “I was trying to acknowledge all these things. And that was like a really quick acknowledgement that this woman would’ve been good enough to be on this league, but was not allowed.” And so, our show is really examining this league was an incredible space. We still do not have a professional women’s major league baseball team now. This was the only time in history that ever happened.
Abbi Jacobson:
And our show is examining, for a lot of people, for a lot of women, white women and white passing women, this allowed them to play professional baseball. But if you were not in that category, you were not allowed in that door. And Max is roughly based on three women who ended up playing in the Negro leagues with men, which is incredible. Amy Johnson, who went to the tryouts and was not allowed on. Connie Morgan and Tony Stone. And so our show there’s none of the characters from the movie, but it’s still, I think has the spirit of the movie, but it’s touching on a lot of things that the movie doesn’t, like race and believe it or not, there’s some queer women playing professional baseball. I guess in the nineties, they just like, they weren’t aware.
Dylan Marron:
No, no, no. Queerness was invented after that.
Abbi Jacobson:
But yes, the show is pretty queer.
Dylan Marron:
Yeah. It’s exciting. Let’s just talk about it. There is an inherent queerness that a lot of people read on to the movie, A League of Their Own.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes. But no-
Dylan Marron:
So gay.
Abbi Jacobson:
It is a iconically gay movie, but no one’s gay.
Dylan Marron:
No, one’s gay.
Abbi Jacobson:
I mean, not even Rosie.
Dylan Marron:
I know. Rosie wasn’t even out yet.
Abbi Jacobson:
I think she was. Or maybe she wasn’t publicly.
Dylan Marron:
I think se came out in the late nineties, not publicly.
Abbi Jacobson:
Oh, oh, oh, okay. I got a chance to talk to her too about it. Maybe it wasn’t, I didn’t know when she publicly came out, but she was definitely like…
Dylan Marron:
A practicing queer. Yeah, exactly.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yeah. Let’s make sure the data’s right in her Wikipedia.
Dylan Marron:
We’ll fact check that to. When did it start for you? That’s what I’ll ask Rosie personally.
Abbi Jacobson:
Abbi Jacobson, [inaudible 00:46:07] thank you.
Dylan Marron:
No, I’ll get thrown under for that one. There is a queerness. If you’re comfortable talking about it, you publicly came out through, if my research led me correctly, through a weird interview with a journalist.
Abbi Jacobson:
I think that would… Yes, it was a really weird interview. And my Abbi Abrams came out because I was like, what? I think it’s so interesting, whatever. Queer people have to publicly come out. This is an obvious statement, but I hate that straight people don’t have to say a fucking thing. It was a big outlet. It was Vanity Fair. I think I was promoting the book.
Dylan Marron:
6 Balloons?
Abbi Jacobson:
No, 6 Balloons. It definitely would’ve been the book, because the book is all about that. That’s so funny. It was for 6 Balloons, which is this film I was doing. And she goes, “You’re such a catch. Why are you single? What kind of guy are you into you? I don’t get it.” And I was like, “Oh, it was not a secret to me at all. But I also, wasn’t going to tweet it.
Dylan Marron:
Yeah.
Abbi Jacobson:
I don’t know that just didn’t feel like my vibe. And I stumbled through making sure she knew I was queer [inaudible 00:47:42]. And then in the article, it appears I was stumbling through it, but I guess I was just relieved that/// I don’t know.
Dylan Marron:
But it wasn’t a secret. You were like, “I want to be honest about this, but I don’t want this to be a coming out. But you understand how media works too?
Abbi Jacobson:
Not at all. The way she even phrased it, I was like, “Oh, this is not a thing that’s known. Even thought I… Rosie, I was practicing. I think that’s correct in my Wikipedia. No one needs to go on it.
Dylan Marron:
Oh, I’ll be editing it today.
Abbi Jacobson:
But I don’t know what… I just was like, well, I have to correct this person because I don’t, this isn’t incorrect. Except for the fact that I am a catch, but-
Dylan Marron:
Yeah, not I [inaudible 00:48:33] correct that.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yeah. But yeah, it was clumsy.
Dylan Marron:
I was trying to formulate this question, but you’re totally right. That I think this whole notion and performance of coming out is kind of bizarre. I think you know I came out at 18, which was so I had a very Ryan Murphy coming out. It’s like mom, dad, I’m gay, and they’re like, we know. And then everyone was like crying. And I think like that changes… 2006 is recent, but it feels like a totally different time.
Abbi Jacobson:
Wait. 2006 was-
Dylan Marron:
Is when I came out.
Abbi Jacobson:
Okay. I was like, wait that… Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dylan Marron:
I’m telling you, no. Yes, I came out in 2006 and it just feels so different. Meaning what you’re articulating is I think the prevailing feeling of like, I don’t want to come out, I’m just queer.
Abbi Jacobson:
I just didn’t feel like I needed to make some sort of announcement. I mean, I was so old. Not that that has anything to do with the announcement. I just realized this about myself pretty late. And once I did, I was very much open about it. It’s in everything I make. And I don’t know. It was sort of kind of right that it happened that way. I was like, “Oh, you don’t know, Vanity Fair.”
Dylan Marron:
Yes, you got to educate them. Is queerness consciously woven into A League of Their Own, the new adaptation?
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes. Listen, it’s about so many other things. It’s a sports show and I think it’s like such a… Oh it has. I’ll be done in post in two weeks. I’m still very much in it every day. But yes, the queerness is without a doubt woven into it. And two, I just don’t think there are a lot of queer stories from that time period that are shown. And they’re based on real. We did a lot, a lot of research for the show and it was exciting to… Believe it or not, I didn’t do a ton of… We didn’t have a research department for Broad City. But yes, it was a really important part of the show.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. You’re making me realize something too, which is a lot of the time, with the current era of media, when it’s people refer to shows and work as IP, there’s a lot of eye rolling and some of it is valid of like, “Oh, everything’s a reboot these days.” But I think what I’m realizing now talking to you is, there can actually be a beauty to that too, because it’s taking these stories, not referring to it as IP, but stories that we all really loved and saying, “Okay, but what if you just turn the camera this way? It’s this world. We’re putting the camera in this world, but we’re angling it away a little.” I’m just curious about the creative process of taking a known story from the beginning, you wanted to make sure it wasn’t those characters.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes.
Dylan Marron:
Yes.
Abbi Jacobson:
And I’m not attempting to be Geena Davis in any way. That would be a hilarious thing to me. I don’t know why. She’s just the such a movie star. But yes, no one is the same. There are definitely nods to the movie because as a lover and a fan of the movie, you also want to see the little nods.
Dylan Marron:
Totally.
Abbi Jacobson:
But a lot of the nods to the movie are real things that happened in the league. And so, we’re going to include them again, because we talked to real players and read all this stuff about the league and the era and what getting into that league was like, and the tryouts and all these things. I think it’s a really difficult task, especially when it’s people’s favorite movie.
Abbi Jacobson:
But now I’m at the end of it, and I’ve been really nervous us about this for the whole… I started doing this in 2017 and where we are now and I’ve been nervous. “Are we going to get this right? Are people going to hate it? I imagine people are going to watch it like this. Let’s just see how you ruined my movie.” And a lot of people might. And this might not be for them, but I’m at a point right now where I think this is where you have to be as a creative, I’m really proud of it.
Dylan Marron:
Good.
Abbi Jacobson:
And I think we made something really different than the movie and something really good. And I don’t know. That’s so scary to say, but that’s the best you can hope for. And then if it’s not received, then I did what I could. I don’t know. But I feel good about honoring these women’s stories.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. What a gift that you’re able… I’m so glad that you’re saying this and saying this on the record here.
Abbi Jacobson:
That I think it’s good?
Dylan Marron:
Yeah. No, I mean that, because I think-
Abbi Jacobson:
They’re going to be like, “She said she thinks it’s good,” when it comes out.
Dylan Marron:
You’re going to be memeable. And I’m going to be making some face in the background. No, I think that’s such a beautiful thing. And I do love that it’s recorded because I think whenever we put art out into the world, we then average what we feel with what other people say about it. And it’s like, I wish we didn’t have to do that. You believe in it. You like it. That’s so cool.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes, it is cool. I’m going to be a nervous wreck when it comes out.
Dylan Marron:
Of course. But you have to accept that.
Abbi Jacobson:
But ultimately you just got to trust your gut.
Dylan Marron:
Completely. For many people who aren’t in the television world, TV development is an agonizingly long process. Agonizingly long. If I understand correctly, you pitched A League of Their Own and sold it in 2017. Pilot, written and shot in 2018, or you wrote the whole season and then you shot a pilot?
Abbi Jacobson:
We had a development room where we wrote an entire season. It was originally going to be a half hour comedy. Then we got feedback that they wanted us to rework the pilot. Will and I rewrote the pilot now. And I’m actually very happy that that happened. The show changed a lot and I was waiting to officially be in it. I don’t know why. I think I was still in Broad City and I was like, “Do I want to do this?” And I was waiting until I loved her. And we were working on it for so long, and then finally we rewrote the pilot and then I fell in love with the character. My character’s name is Carson. And then we shot the new pilot in February of 2020, so right before COVID. And then we wrote-
Dylan Marron:
So you wrapped?
Abbi Jacobson:
With the pilot.
Dylan Marron:
You wrapped the pilot, you wrapped production and then you were in the edit.
Abbi Jacobson:
I was editing when they were like, we need to leave the facility. Yes, in person. And then we edited remotely and then we got picked up and then we wrote season one again. Now as an hour long [dramedy 00:56:34]. All on zZoom in 2020 and 2021. Shot it. Where are we? We shot it. And we shot in Pittsburgh, last summer.
Dylan Marron:
Yes, 2021.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes. And I’m still in post on it.
Dylan Marron:
And then it’s coming out this year?
Abbi Jacobson:
It comes out this summer.
Dylan Marron:
Wow. It’s a long process. That’s going to be five years.
Abbi Jacobson:
Yes.
Dylan Marron:
Yes. Again, we talked about failure.
Abbi Jacobson:
Good thing. I like it, right. Jesus.
Dylan Marron:
Thank God. We talked about failure and how that applies to TV. But I think the other interesting thing about improv is that improv is don’t think. Don’t think, just do. Build it, tear it down. Don’t think about it. That is antithetical to the TV development process, which is think constantly this executive in a far away tower on a lot somewhere is telling you I don’t feel emotion from this. And you have to constantly be thinking, how do you keep that… I guess it’s a similar question, but how keep that freshness of the improv spirit as you are spending hours on a line?
Abbi Jacobson:
I think it’s also like, I feel like it’s a hustle energy of improv of like, “Okay, then I’ll try this.” Or like, “I’m always going to try this.” And even in a writer’s room, when I hire a writer, my favorite kind of writer is someone who is going to be like, “Okay, that didn’t work. What about this? What about this?” Someone who’s going to keep coming with ideas. And listen, sometimes I’m the worst where I’m like, I don’t know. Negating and you always like, okay, maybe not that, but then what else? Yes [and-ing 00:58:25] is a big rule of comedy in improv. Yes or no, but also maybe this. Just adding upon.
Abbi Jacobson:
And I think writing in production and television, things change so much. The production of this show, every single thing that could have gone wrong, went wrong. And it was a constant. We have to rewrite this scene to be shot tomorrow. This is this. It’s raining. Did you guys know that it rains more in Pittsburgh than almost anywhere in the United States? Because I didn’t and we’re shooting a show about a baseball.
Dylan Marron:
All indoors. All the indoor fields.
Abbi Jacobson:
It was just like, what do we do? What do we do? We got to move this here. We got to shoot here. Maybe they’re not in it. I still feel that muscle is constantly being worked out. Because you have to figure out how to make it work. And so, even though the writing process is so thorough and feels never ending, it’s like there’s another whole stage where that’s done and now you’re taking the writing and you’re having to make this other thing work. And then you shot it all and we’re never going back there right now to reshoot. We’re in Screenville, and we have to make what we got work right in the edit. And that’s a whole other like,”Okay, well what if we recut it like this?” Or like, that’s really bringing a cue. It’s like never ending obstacle course you’re on.
Dylan Marron:
And just with your description, it’s also like the writing doesn’t end. I have rewritten in the edit because you’re like-
Abbi Jacobson:
Oh, you have to. Even if you get exactly what you want, sometimes you’re like, “Oh, that doesn’t work the way I thought it would.
Dylan Marron:
And it’s mystifying that something that can kill in the room, kill on set falls flat in the edit. And so, I think the writing process doesn’t end at the room. It’s on and on.
Abbi Jacobson:
The editors that I’ve worked with they’re writing. You have to rework a whole scene sometimes.
Dylan Marron:
All together. I know you’re working on your fantasy project now. This was a dream project for you. And Broad City was a fantasy project. But I’m just curious and I encourage you to just go wild with this answer, but what’s an absolute fantasy project you have?
Abbi Jacobson:
Okay. I have two things.
Dylan Marron:
I want them both.
Abbi Jacobson:
Here we go. One, I’ve done books where I’ve made artwork, but they never felt like actually the art I want to make. They always were in book form and they were very small. I’ve been talking about this for years. I want to paint again so badly that. And this project that I’ve been trying to work on is adapting the short story that I can’t say what it is, because I’m trying to get the rights so bad.
Dylan Marron:
Can I list some names? No, I won’t do that.
Abbi Jacobson:
I don’t know if she… Maybe it’d be helpful. Should I look into a camera and plead, but I really want to write a film and direct it, but not be in it. I don’t want to be in it.
Dylan Marron:
Based on these short stories?
Abbi Jacobson:
Just one short story.
Dylan Marron:
Wow. Okay. I’m ready to-
Abbi Jacobson:
And it’s an older short story and I read it during COVID and I couldn’t up thinking about it. And that’s really what I would love to do. And I haven’t worked on a piece of writing by myself in a number of years. And that’s what I’m longing to do. I love a collaborative experience, but I would love to do something on… Both of those things are pretty solo.
Dylan Marron:
Okay. That’s exciting. I can’t wait for both. Well, Abbi, thank you so much.
Abbi Jacobson:
My goodness. Thank you so much.
Dylan Marron:
I know this just sped by. Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you to our TED members for watching. Thank you, Debbie for watching.
Abbi Jacobson:
Debbie.
Dylan Marron:
Debbie, we love you. We hope Design Matters was in good hands just for these 90 minutes. And once again, Abbi Jacobson.
Abbi Jacobson:
Thank you all so much.
Debbie Millman:
That was Abbi Jacobson in conversation with Dylan Marron at the TED 2022 Conference in Vancouver. I hope to interview both of them separately in the near future. This is the 18th year we’ve been podcasting design matters. And I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference. We can make a difference or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.
Speaker 2:
Design matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. Interviews are usually recorded at the School of Visual Arts Masters and Branding Program in New York City, the first and longest running branding program in the world. The editor in chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.