Reiser pulls back a curtain with ‘ There’s ... Johnny!’
Streaming platforms are mad about Paul Reiser.
The star of NBC’s Mad About You has hit the trifecta with Amazon’s Red
Oaks, Netflix’s Stranger Things and, on Hulu, There’s … Johnny!, which he created and produced with David Steven Simon.
Johnny is a coming-of-age story, set in 1972, about 19-year-old Nebraskan Andy (Ian Nelson), who travels to the Burbank, Calif., studios of The Tonight
Show and lands a job backstage working for Johnny Carson. The seven-episode, half-hour series uses original clips from Carson’s show.
Johnny needed the cooperation of the Carson estate, run by the entertainer’s nephew, Jeff Sotzing, an executive producer on the show. It took 10 years to make the series as Reiser waited for approval.
“I’ve always been very protective of the brand,” Sotzing says. “I hope that when former Tonight Show staff members watch the show, they will be inspired to share their own experiences so that we can incorporate those story lines into (possible) future episodes.”
Reiser talked with USA TODAY. An edited transcript:
Q: Where did the idea for There’s … Johnny! come from?
A: My buddy David Simon and I, years ago, were just talking about Johnny Carson and that period. I said: “Well, that’s a great time and a great backdrop. What would a show be about that?”
Q: Is Andy based on anybody?
A: We pitched it to Jeff, and he said, “Well, that was my life story.” We didn’t know that. ... We thought a great way to tell the story would be to bring a kid who was new to all of it. Johnny is very much the backdrop and very much in the DNA of the show, but it’s not at all about him, and we never really see him other than in the (real-life) clips. The show is really about two kids: Assistant talent coordinator Joy (Jane Levy) is this young woman who could not be more different from Andy. She’s Beverly Hills, show-business raised with a whole set of problems that he’s never seen before. And she’s never seen anybody like him.
Q: What do you think people will like about the show?
A: It will appeal to people who remember that time and who would enjoy visiting with Johnny and seeing behind the scenes — even though we’re making it up. We have Tony Danza, who is so excellent in this show. He’s the only one who plays a real person, ( Tonight Show executive producer) Freddie De Cordova, who’s a larger-than-life guy from the old school.
Q: What genre would you say this show is?
A: There’s a presumption of funny because you’ve got funny writers trying to write funny jokes for Johnny, and there’s the chaos and the comedy of getting a show on the air. I think it’s a comedy with a lot of heart.
Q: How did you get involved with Stranger Things?
A: The easiest way possible: They called me and said, “We have this part that we wrote with you in mind.” And I said, “All right, you got me.”
Q: With so many revivals, would you consider a return visit to Mad About You?
A: Because so many people have been asking us, I’ve thought, you know, it’s not impossible because I’ve seen that it can be done well. If there’s a story we can tell — I’m not convinced that we should do it, but I’m not as opposed to it as I have been.