Los Angeles — “He has a kaleidoscope of vision that undermines accuracy. …”
In November 2020, Diallo Riddle and his creative team are working on material for the second season of Shaman’s Showcase, a musical comedy series he produced with his writing partner and co-star Bashir Salahuddin . They’re breaking down the lyrics to “Diamond Eyes,” a James Bond impersonation theme song about a movie villain with some too many quirks.
Under a large tent built in a parking lot in Santa Monica, a dozen comedy writers and crew members seated six feet apart shout muffled suggestions in face masks. They giggle and clap when it comes to something.
“His jawbone is glass and his thighs are leather…”
“Shaman’s Showcase,” which premiered at IFC in July 2019, was loved by audiences and critics alike for this kind of unabashed antics and deep dive into pop culture. For decades, it has hosted musical variety shows on par with “Soul Train.”
Afro-sporting megalomaniac, Sherman spends each episode paying tribute to himself — Rowling his snippet low budget movie and TV shows, plugins product View highlights of his past musical guests (artist parodies Mary J. Blige, prince When blondie). The Black History Month special, which aired in June 2020 (yes, the summer air date was part of the gag), further cemented Riddle and Salahuddin’s brand of comedy: willingness to send and celebrate black culture. I was.
More than three years after its debut, “Shermans” is finally back, returning to a world where the dreadful days of the pandemic are over, but can still use a laugh or two. Covid-19-related issues were largely responsible for the show’s long hiatus, but season 2 premiered on Wednesday, with two episodes on IFC and AMC+, treating the year in between as if it never happened. increase.
As part of their overall goal of creating a timeless show, Riddle and Salahuddin favored a focus on the legendary world of the shamans, and season 1’s approach of avoiding real-world problems almost entirely. I persisted. (They’re taking on more topical humor for their other joint venture, the HBO Max sitcom “Southside.”) The entire new season of “Shermans” is an Easter egg to Covid. Only one of his allusions is included.
Of course, the real world kept getting in the way when it came to actually making the episode.
That afternoon in November 2020, my to-do list for the day included analyzing a popular 90s hip-hop song to create a poscut bit and working out the twist with a Jodeci-inspired R&B jam. It was Some songs still lacked vocals due to limited studio time due to Covid protocols. In the absence of an instrumental track, Riddle made the beat by banging his hands on a table and simulating horns with his mouth. The season’s final writing session was scheduled for the next day.
“We’re 100 percent shooting in the first three weeks of February,” Riddle cheered as the writers started taking their lunch breaks. His declaration was partially correct — add the years.
“If you know, you know”
Riddle and Salahuddin met while attending Harvard in the 1990s and honed their writing skills on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.
They started thinking about “Sherman’s Showcase” because they wanted to create a vehicle for the songs they wrote that wasn’t talk show friendly. After watching a Talking Heads-inspired episode of the IFC mockumentary series Documentary Now!, they thought a comedy musical parody was the perfect solution.
Riddle likes to think of “Shamans” as “the stupidity of the sages”, citing “In Living Color”, Robert Townsend’s “Partners in Crime” special, and “The Muppet Show” as inspirations.
To create what they call a “pseudo-time capsule,” they tapped into a wide variety of formative pop culture passions — Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Marvin Gaye classics, and Transformers action figures. mash up with music geek propensity. A passion for exploring black history. Whether it’s Berry Gordy’s alternate version of his 1985 karate comedy “The Last Dragon,” or one that sympathizes with the film’s bad guy Shonahu, no mention is too niche. Try go-go music in Washington, DC.
“Where can you go where black people have never been before?” Riddle said in a video interview in March. “It’s very important to the mission of Shamans. we People of color are something we’ve never seen before, and likely neither have our viewers. “
Executive producer John Legend said the duo’s willingness to indulge in quirkiness is key to the show’s appeal.
“It’s so weird and funny,” he said in a video interview.
It’s the formula that landed the show on many Best of lists at the end of 2019, backed by Salahuddin’s crafty and slick performance as Shaman.Renewed for a second season in June 2020, they Material 4 months after I started working on it.
For eight weeks, the writers worked under a tent, in coats and blankets, at a folding table with a box of tissues and a container of antibacterial hand gel. In Los Angeles, amidst the constant buzz of snowplows, garbage trucks and planes to and from LAX, they hit their goal of finishing writing the season in November.
But a spike in Covid cases in Los Angeles County in January 2021, followed by a series of restrictions, delayed the shooting. By March, some of the pandemichis protocols had been relaxed, allowing vaccination to become more widespread. But by then, Riddle and Saladin were filming the second season of “South Side” in Chicago.
Salahuddin knew the heartbreak of Shaw falling victim to the pandemic. He was a regular on Netflix’s era wrestling comedy “GLOW,” which was abruptly canceled in October 2020 while it was filming its planned fourth and final season. He said he never feared such a fate befalling “Sherman’s Showcase”, as he remained enthusiastic throughout the years. “Every month I get an email saying, ‘I have to redo this thing,'” he said.
The love of the creators for the show was also unwavering. They treasure this place as a potential location for just about any outlandish idea that might come to mind while you’re in the shower or stuck in Los Angeles traffic.
“There are actually platforms out there that can translate a song I love into something I can play,” says Salahuddin. “We can make many wishes come true.”
It is also a family matter. A group of Riddle and Salahuddin’s relatives work on and off screen, including the show’s choreographer Brittany Riddle, animator Song Riddle (Diallo Riddle’s wife and nephew), and Salahuddin’s sister. muckwho writes, acts and sings.
“The show feels like a scrapbook of my life,” said Riddle. “It’s like going to a great costume party with your best friends.”
million hoop
In the fall of 2021, when Riddle and Salahuddin finally got back to the season 2 script from a year ago, they realized a lot of the ideas needed to be changed because they felt corny. Others are unable to thrive under Covid protocols.
“We had to jump a million times,” said Riddle. “Filming during Covid is more expensive, so we had to move away from some things that required us to build more elaborate sets.” refused.)
This restriction also limited the number of people who could appear in a scene. Celebrity cameos, which the first season included appearances by the likes of Quincy Jones, Mario Van Peebles, and Common, were also difficult to book.
“Even in 1922, some people didn’t want to travel, so it hit us hard,” Riddle said.
The production also needed to find a large soundstage that allowed for social distancing, so they had to move from Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles where the show is full of jokes, to another studio in the nearby Pacoima neighborhood.
When we visited the new soundstage in February, the crew wore transparent face shields and masks and worked on a variety of quirky settings. After lighting the circular platform, I turned my attention to the hull of the emerging spacecraft.
“Within these four walls, we can take our viewers to different countries and outer space.” A little crafty, never stagnant, always evolving.”
Once the performers arrived at the lot, they reported to a quick outdoor test tent before heading to a wardrobe department filled with dashiki, patchwork-embroidered top hats and P-Funk-inspired platform boots. (Costume designer Ariella Waldo Cohain is the only Emmy winner so far for the Black History Month special.) Of the roughly 150 cast and crew members, during the show’s four weeks of filming, Only one person tested positive for Covid.
Extra effort and occasional setbacks are not reflected in the finished product. The new season finds the Shellmasphere recognizably intact and more delightfully metatextual than ever before. The show’s non-linear, nostalgia-driven format proved to be its greatest asset in surviving its three-year hiatus.
“Because it’s not a story show, we didn’t have to feature characters in specific places, even with long gaps in between,” says Riddle. “We had to come in and meet the characters where we wanted them.”
That creative freedom allowed them to work on a fearless subplot in which Sherman’s beleaguered producer Dutch Shepherd (played by Riddle) takes a showcase on the road to Africa. . Another episode contains animated sketches resembling 8-bit video games. The latest songs also explore new genre territory, such as afrobeat bop, trap nursery rhymes, and post-punk anthems. The creators have also managed to secure cameos like Issa Rae and Chance the Rapper.
As for that “Diamond Eyes” idea, conceived two years ago, the number turned into a scene in which a legend playing a 007 wannabe named Agent 187 roams the awkward spy movie trailer.
In a final joint video interview in September, Salahuddin briefly reflected on the past two years as he reflected on the challenges of the pandemic. 20 For years we were unable to do our job and worked night and day for other people’s shows. “
“Some of the challenges of filming during Covid have actually improved some things,” Riddle said.
“I remember one day in particular,” he continued. “My wife was in the driveway of our house practicing with dancers wearing masks. was reading the script in his room the night before shooting something.
“We’ve done some miracles,” he said, referring to the entire cast and crew of “Sherman.” I think I let you.”