Mining the Asian American Experience
Melvin Mar and producing partner Jake Kasdan have eight active TV and film projects leveraging AAPI storytelling
When “Fresh off the Boat” premiered in 2015, only a handful of shows with a predominantly Asian American cast had ever aired in primetime — and none of them lasted long. But the success of that ABC sitcom, which spanned six seasons, inspired a long-overdue boom in series and films featuring Asian American leads — including “Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.,” from “Fresh off the Boat” producing partners Melvin Mar and Jake Kasdan.
The duo, who have been based at 20th TV for more than a dozen years, have eight active TV and film projects, each showcasing different elements of the vast Asian American and Pacific Islander experience.
“It’s all part of the fabric of being American,” Mar says of the slate, speaking to Variety as AAPI Heritage Month gets underway. “Every sort of American story has a specific aspect that needs to be told. ‘Asian American’ is such a big term, with so many people a part of it. This is an opportunity to narrow down and tell [unique stories].”
Their latest project: an untitled comedy starring comedian and “The Daily Show” correspondent
Ronny Chieng, who has been tapped to play the new G.M. of the Brooklyn Nets in a Hulu series, Variety can exclusively reveal. The show is inspired by (but not about) real-life Nets owner Joe Tsai.
Chieng, whose credits include “Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” is a regular on “Doogie.” He also pops up on “American Born Chinese,” a Disney+ adaptation of Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel that stars Michelle Yeoh; Kelvin Yu is showrunner of the series, which is in production for a January debut. “He’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met,” Mar says of Chieng. “And Joe Tsai, who’s a good friend, that’s just another level of illustrating the AAPIS in America.”
Kasdan and Mar have two pilots with an Asian American focus set up at ABC: family comedy “The Son in Law” from Ajay Sahgal and “Josep,” starring comedian Jo Koy and inspired by his Filipino family. At Freeform, they have the pilot “AZNBBGRL,” from Natalie
Chaidez and Dinh Thai, about young women in Southern California’s Vietnamese community.
Season 2 of Disney+’s “Doogie Kamealoha,” the reimagined take on “Doogie Howser, M.D.” from exec producer Kourtney Kang and starring Peyton Elizabeth Lee, is underway. Lee also stars in Disney+ movie “Prom Pact,” now shooting and which Kasdan and Mar are producing. And at Netflix, the producers have reunited with “Fresh off the Boat” showrunner Nahnatchka Khan for the film “Advantage Play,” starring Ali Wong.
The producing duo now have projects on nearly every Disney platform, which Mar says was a goal ever since the conglom purchased 21st Century Fox and the 20th TV studio became an inhouse supplier for Disney+, ABC, Hulu, Freeform and others. “There should be an Asian American show on every platform,” he says.
President of 20th TV Karey Burke credits the pair for seeing an underrepresented audience and using their clout to make shows with those viewers in mind. “‘Fresh off the Boat’ didn’t happen by accident,” Burke says. “It took vision and tenacity and belief, and so much of that is because of them.”
Mar remembers growing up in Los Angeles and getting excited when newscaster Connie Chung, who back then was one of the few Asian American faces on television, would appear on his living room screen.
“There’s a tendency to think, did I check the box as an Asian American TV producer?” Mar says. “But it’s not about box checking. The biggest thing for me personally was realizing that my 9-year-old daughter is not going to have the experience that I had growing up — which was, not seeing myself on television.”
He adds of the new visibility: “That’s a cool feeling, and just makes me think that I have to keep pushing.”