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AddClone Highto the list.
ButClone Highwas, by most commercial measures, a failure.
As opposed to crossing their arms and being like, These young people dont know what theyre talking about.
All they could do is hope.
I.They Were Young, Foolish, and Working in an Abandoned Psych Ward
I.
It made it seem a lot more clever and fun.
Chris and Phil were the reason that I signed with an agent and moved out here.
They said, We have the show that might go.
We would love for you to work on it.
They introduced me to Matt Rice.
Will Forte, voice of Abe:I had met Chris and Phil at the Aspen Comedy Festival.
We had the same agent, Matt Rice.
I went to college with him.
He used to always love to get all his clients together; all his clients just really get along.
Along came Chris and Phil, these new,newguys who he had just taken on.
We became friends and started watchingSurvivorin this big fun group.
A couple of years later, they had come to a couple of Groundlings shows that I had done.
I would have done anything with them, because they were really funny.
Rivinoja:It was just so chaotic the whole time.
I was the only woman.
Miller:The rest of that, pretty accurate, though.
We were just young tots, and then we had to make a TV show.
We were not experts in anything.
Miller:Its quite possible it was haunted.
Lord:All the doors locked from the outside.
Rivinoja:They were disgusting and there was no air conditioning.
My office had this sink with no handles, it just had foot pedals.
It was so, so weird.
Miller:We were young and foolish.
We did these things sometimes called Funny Fridays, where we would all go out to lunch.
Lord:We were inexperienced.
II.I Dont Get This.
The episodes were dense with winky jokes, conspiracy theories, and cheeky melodrama.
Im not responsible for their love, but I kind of am.
I was like, I dont know if I have time for this shit.
I got a C-level rating right now.
But I was like, Let me see whats going on.
I did, and I didnt get it.
We were reading it in the booth and I was like, I dont get this.
I was so, just, confused.
But I remember so specifically how focused and determined Phil and Chris were.
Forte:I love that you call them The Boys.
And it worked out.
I got to just relax into their jokes.
Lord:We picked folkswho wrote scriptsthat really made us laugh.
It was kind of a weird summer camp.
This is so boring.
Are you guys sure this is what you want?
But they claimed that that was what they wanted.
It took a while to get used to that.
And there was plenty of that.
Sullivan:Will, did you have any idea that they would become the kingmakers of the universe?
Forte:Oh no!
They were just these little sweetie pies that I liked to watchSurvivorwith.
III.No Money, No Sleep, No Show
III.
Miller:We had really killed ourselves to get this thing done.
I made it to this eco-lodge that had a dial-up, and I had thousands of emails.
Something was going on, and it was very confusing.
My first thought was, Hey, any publicity is good publicity.
Look at that, we were on the CNN ticker.
The shows getting awareness.
And then, Oh, the show has also been taken off the air.
Lord:Thats how we informed the cast and crew, by CNN ticker.
It unwound quickly, and I went pretty crazy.
Literally turned in the last episode and fell to bits.
To get that news was shocking.
It was starting to catch on.
They had done a lot to helpSouth Parkcatch traction early on.
We had to cancel because the MTV publicists were done doing press.
Miller:You cant talk about this at all.
Lord:And still, Im not sure if we did the right thing by listening to them.
Rivinoja:I was working onSouth Park; I kept going back and forth betweenSouth ParkandClone Highduring that time.
I remember the amount of press and excitement aroundClone High.
I was expecting all this fanfare, and then when it got canceled, it was just so perplexing.
Most of me thought,I cant believe people care that much about anything.
Sullivan:Bill Lawrence called me.
To have that, and to have that balloon also deflate, was super sad.
But I thought, Well, its maybe too smart for whats happening now.
Maybe theyre too good.
Rivinoja:It just was this blip on my resume for a very long time.
Nobody cared about it at all, until very recently.
Sullivan:Are you serious?
Sullivan:What the fuck!
IV.Any Truth to These Rumors?
AfterClone Highended, cast and crew went their separate ways.
But about 15 years after the cancellation, an opportunity for a grander reunion arose.
Would you like to write it?
And I was like, Yeah, yeah.
In live action, it gets really broad really quickly, and its hard to get the tone right.
You need teenagers to be super funny, and its really hard to find people for that.
That was motivation enough for us to talk to Bill and say, Lets actually do this.
The email we sent to Erica about how there was interest from streamers was in late 2019.
Rivinoja:Chris brought up the idea of, Would you want to be the showrunner on it?
Were gonna go pitch it to a bunch of places and theres interest.
I wrote the pitch and came up with all the new characters.
We did our first pitch in March 2020 to HBO Max over Zoom.
They bought it in the room.
Its not like we just reunited to do this.
Wevecontinued to work on projects together.
Sullivan:I obviously thought it was dead, but then streamers started doing reboots of other stuff.
Forte:I think I heard something at a party?
I dont think it was from Chris and Phil.
I called them and said, I heard this.
Any truth to these rumors?
And they said, Yeah, its looking like its happening.
Sullivan:Bill called me, and hes like, Listen, are you still up for this?
And I was like, Fuck, yeah.
Lord:Things happen in due time.
It had to feel right.
In that environment, it seemed to make a lot of sense.
Rivinoja:It did feel like a good time to do the same idea, but updated.
Take what we loved about it, and then fix what we did poorly, I hope.
Some of it was just mean jokes, little celebrity digs.
Some of it just doesnt hold up.
Durbin:The idea of being into your feelings and in touch with your feelings has only becomemore.
It had that spirit then, and were trying to keep it now.
V.Clone High Thaws Out
V.
HBO Max ordered two 10-episode seasons ofClone Highandannounced its renewalin winter 2021.
Rivinoja and Durbin, who joined the series in spring 2022, were tapped as co-showrunners.
What they dont realize is that Scudworth has been secretly cloningmorehistorical figures.
Trying to do something that will be entertaining and engaging for both audiences is a real challenge.
There was definitely a lot of balance of like,How much backstory do we give?
How much do we just let people figure it out?That took a long time.
Rivinoja:We wanted to do:This is what we think is funny.
This is what we want to see on the screen.
This is what we want to see these characters do.
And also, this is a treat for the fans, this little thing.
We were trying to give the fans what they wanted, but make a new set of fans.
It was really hard.
Im not sure we succeeded.
The things that turned out to be the funniest were the ones that were honestly the warmest.
PeoplehateAbe and think hes such a turd.
Even though at the time we thought Abe was our way in, I think it was really Joan.
Sullivan:When I read the script, I was like, Joan has her confidence!
The first season was so, Joan just getting tossed around in a pinball machine to everyone elses emotions.
That made me beyond thrilled.
Phil andChris will know the actual terms I dont know the terms.
But we wanted it to look pretty trashy and garbagey, basically, like the original one.
Lord:Erica might need some media training.
We were always inspired by the Golden Age of limited animation.
We would almost make inside jokes about how little something could move and still tell the story.
I dont know if I would call it trashy.
What would you call it, Chris?
Miller:Its a limited art style that favors design over movement.
We were trying to get everyone to have a very distinct silhouette, and be very iconically them.
The animation quality is better than we were able to do 20 years ago.
The tools are more advanced.
Lord:Scudworth is very easy to get back into.
I just have to tap into my deep wells of anxiety and rage.
I do remember going, Shoot.
Can you play me what we used to sound like?
Sometimes, Chris, I would accidentally become Lord Business.
Its a similar bang out of role: the evil boss.
I was like, Oh, its nice to be back here.
Sullivan:Will and I both use our same voices, exactly the way God gave them to us.
His is more hyped-up energy and mine is more low-key.
We just talk like ourselves.
Forte:It was the opposite of rust.
We were lubed up for season two.
More than anything, its just the confidence of having a little more experience.
I didnt get that.
Forte:The potential for this show was so great and unfulfilled.
It really did feel like there was so much there.
Sullivan:Its emotional in all the right ways.
Its like a weird comfort blanket that you didnt expect to get.
Thats the thing that you always hope for.
