An oral history of the sketch that introduced the world to a man in desperate need of a car with a good steering wheel that doesn't fly off while you're driving
I Think You Should Leave’s Tim Robinson, Zach Kanin, Akiva Schaffer, and Ruben Rabasa at Vulture Festival. Photo: Vulture and Getty Images Midway through the third episode of I Think You Should Leave, Netflix’s summer sketch sensation, co-creator Tim Robinson asks a focus group for some ideas for Ford. A simple enough sketch premise. Co-creator Zach Kanin, playing Paul, suggests “Bluetooth capabilities.” Sure, fine. It goes around a little.
So obviously at that time you’re like, “And then one day I’m going to have a sketch show on Netflix.” But of the things you did on air, did you feel like “Oh, there’s something there”? Because it is a similar thing of “Here’s this guy, and I think they’re like ‘want him to leave.’” They’re like, “Stop singing!” and then he hits everything. Do you think that was …Robinson: Most sketch comedies. Like, “Oh, I think you need to get out of here now.”All right, then never mind. You’re right.
Kanin: It also, you know that bugs are running around but when we shot it in winter and when it’s cold, bugs don’t move at all. It was really hard to get them to move around. Robinson: Um, like a kind of fake Sinatra guy comes in, and he’s a local at this casino and he’s a hot shot, and he comes in and he tips everybody, pays for everybody’s meals, lights a guy’s cigarette, and in one roll of the dice, he loses everything, melts down, comes back, and takes everything back that he gave.
Kanin: Yeah, I think just the nature of it being taped and edited, you can do that. Like I think SNL has tape pieces where the joke isn’t until pretty late and you’re given a little more leeway. Schaffer: Similar from everybody in this room, I was just a fan from having seen them a couple times in the show. But then really from The Characters — when I saw that. I was like Oh, there’s so much more here, and The Characters is just as good as anything on the show that we made. Like a year had gone by and I was kind of like Why doesn’t everybody notice that this is the funniest thing? So I was just telling a lot of people like “Oh, did you see this?” and kind of that stuff.
Kanin: We’re definitely having those conversations. That’s more of like when we were picking the sketches and editing that we would think about what we would want it all to be. I’m now just going to say parts of the sketch and offer you the opportunity to say why you find it funny. And you can say “pass.” So the fundamental idea that he doesn’t want the steering wheel to fly out the window when he’s driving — why is that funny? When did you think of that? How did that come to you?Schaffer: Can I ask you a background question? Did it happen to him before?Schaffer: He’s just worried about it.Schaffer: Yeah, he’s like, Why aren’t people agreeing? It was a softball.
Robinson: I was watching Friday the 13th around Halloween. I saw an extra. There’s like a barbecue and they give this extra a burger, and he instantly picks it up and goes, uh. [Waves hand in front of face.] It doesn’t have to be a problem!Schaffer: There’s a mini arch in your bigger Friday the 13th.Schaffer: He’s adding layers.
Can you say other things that were in this? Now this is three minutes. Can you think of bits that were in the eight-minute version?Robinson: Oh, right.Kanin: Because he said he farted. Yeah. And he says, like …Kanin: Yeah, yeah. And you want like the police to say, “Oh, it stinks in here. What did you eat for lunch, slop sandwich?”Kanin: No, I don’t remember.
Kanin: There were more “stink” things in it, and when it was edited together, it was like a bunch in a row. Like you kind of saw how he figured out that Paul, he decided Paul had farted.Kanin: It was similar to our approach on Detroiters, which is, you know, we have some friends and know some people who we love to put in things, but we really like to just find people that we haven’t really seen before much so that they don’t take you out of the sketch as much.
I wanted to back up a little since we don’t know much about you, Ruben, and I think the world wants to know: You have 62 credits on your IMDb page. Can you quickly run through your history as an actor before Tim’s show? Ruben: when shooting, what was your decision of how you wanted to play … this man, nameless man. Does he have a name?Rabasa: No, no, no. I just started and every time they laugh I said, “Well maybe I’m doing something wrong,” you know? Because they were laughing at everything I said.Rabasa: I was scared at the beginning, but I really had fun with that — really. And I love the way they talk to me and we become a beautiful team when we’re doing that.
Kanin: I think in the script he does it and the cap is off so it just spills everywhere. But Ruben kept getting it.Ruben, I wanted to talk about two other moves. How did you sort of master your “stinky” wave? What was your approach to it? And do it right now.Rabasa: So it came out naturally.Rabasa: You mean when I go like this? [He dabs.] I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I don’t know. I got a stick neck. I did it three times.
Kanin: Usually, our editors were really kind of in sync with us on what we really wanted to do. Our editors were Stacy Moon and Andrew Fitzgerald, and so I think Fitz had this one, and we had about a five- to seven-minute version first and just kind of worked through to cut it down to what feels right. And then we would put it the actual episode where there are sketches around [it, and] it would come down even more.
Robinson: We expected just to be one season to be honest with you. Just like yeah, we’re so happy we get to do this and we felt lucky to get to do it. But we just, yeah …What was it like then seeing — I know you aren’t on Twitter , but — how people reacted to the show?Do you have theories of why specifically people responded to it?Schaffer: No, no.
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