Michael Schur
Appearances
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Oh, one thing I thought was very clever. In the good place, when you're in the part that people think is heaven, you're not allowed to use four-letter words. You're not allowed to use expletives. So if you want to use the F word, you end up saying fork. Right. Now, since you can't use the F word on network television—
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
I thought like that is so clever because everybody will know the intent of the word because it's explained to you why somebody is using a word and then they just keep using it, you know, as necessary. So you're not saying the word, but everybody knows the word that you intend. Like, for instance, when you say fork, everybody knows exactly what you mean.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
So is that in part a way of using the language that you wanted to use without having to use it?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Well, let me reintroduce you again. If you're just joining us, my guest is Michael Schur. After writing for The Office and co-creating Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, he created The Good Place and the new series, A Man on the Inside, which is now streaming on Netflix. We'll be back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. Hi, this is Molly C.V.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Nusberg, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week in exclusive. So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Michael Schur, one of the people behind several beloved TV shows.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
After writing for The Office, he co-created Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He created The Good Place and the new series A Man on the Inside, starring Ted Danson, who also starred in The Good Place. So many comics, when they're young, like they're the class clown. They're the ones who's always getting punished for acting up.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
They're the ones whose parents have to come and explain their child's behavior. And they're misfits. And then they find comedy and, you know, often become celebrities and are very well rewarded for it. But it sounds like you through your life, you were always like... Playing within the rules and that that was always important to you.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
So as perhaps one of the minority members of comedy who played by the rules, how do you explain yourself?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
How has that code worked for you working at networks? Because, like, the new series is on Netflix, but most of your shows were on network TV, on broadcast TV, where there's standards and practices and rules you have to obey and, you know, executives you have to answer to.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
And your creative instincts might not be their instincts, especially if what they're going for is, you know, the biggest hit possible and what you're going for is a vision that you have.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
You've worked very closely with Greg Daniels, who created the American version of The Office, and you co-created Parks and Rec with him. What are some of the things that you learned from him, from watching him work and from working with him, that have stayed with you and helped guide you in your independent projects?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
If you're just joining us, my guest is Michael Schur. He wrote for The Office and co-created Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine and created The Good Place, as well as a new Netflix comedy series called A Man on the Inside. We'll talk more after a short break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to my interview with Michael Schur.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
He wrote for The Office, co-created Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and created The Good Place.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
He also created the new Netflix comedy series A Man on the Inside, starring Ted Danson, who's hired by a private investigator to go undercover as a new resident in an assisted living facility to investigate what's happened to a ruby necklace, an heirloom, that was presumably stolen from one of the residents.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
So after The Office, when you and Greg Daniels decided to do another show together and you came up with Parks and Recreation, why did you want to set the show with a backdrop of a small town, Pawnee, Indiana, and their Parks and Recreation department and have the main character start off as the assistant director of the department?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Michael Schur is one of the people behind some of the most beloved TV comedy series of the recent past. He wrote for The Office, co-created and wrote for Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, They both star Ted Danson, who became a star playing the bartender on Cheers, and both shows are entertaining and surprisingly philosophical.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
The series ended in February of 2015. In June of 2015, Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced he was running for president. And of course, he won. Do you feel like you saw that coming in any way? Do you feel like the show reflected the possibility of that?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Coincidentally, I happen to have a clip that illustrates one of the points that you just made about how when she's in city council and is in the process of getting recalled, that the John Glaser character, a fellow member of city council, stands in her way. So here's Amy Poehler presiding over a city council meeting.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
All right. Now that Trump is likely to appoint Robert Kennedy Jr. in charge of all things health related and advised him like go crazy on health and RFK Jr. wants to do away with fluoride in the water. Did you think back to this episode?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
So a very popular moment on Parks and Recreation is when two Fresh Air critics were name-checked. Our TV critic, David Bianculli, and one of our music critics, Ken Tucker. And I want to play that clip, and I'll just set it up briefly. So Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler, is on the local public radio or community radio station called getting interviewed by one of the hosts.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
And here he is, promoing what's coming up.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
I love it. So do you remember who came up with that and why? And also, I want to know, didn't you think, no one's going to get this? Like 1% of your audience is going to get the joke.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
I should mention the voice of the public radio host was Dan Castellanata. Am I saying his name right?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Yeah, I see his name in credits all the time, but I never knew how to pronounce it. See, he's the voice of Homer on The Simpsons. Anyways, thank you for that.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
So we need to take another break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Michael Schur. He wrote for The Office and co-created Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine and created The Good Place, as well as a new Netflix comedy series called A Man on the Inside. We'll talk more after a short break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to my interview with Michael Schur.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
He wrote for The Office and co-created Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He created The Good Place and the new Netflix series A Man on the Inside. What's the TV that meant the most to you when you were growing up?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Do you think TV meant even more to you than it otherwise might have because it was kind of taboo at home?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
What are some of the most consequential changes you've seen in the world of creating television series? And I think in some ways you came in just on the cusp of a big change because The Office is really a game changer in terms of TV sitcoms.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
It's still on Comedy Central. Yeah.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
I would imagine you have a lot of money. No, I'm not going to ask the question you think I'm going to ask. At least I don't think it's the question I'm going to ask.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Thank you very much. So a lot of people might be wondering, like, why are you still working? You have money. You don't have to work. So what is the meaning of work to you? What does work mean in your life?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Michael Schur, it's been great to talk with you. Thank you so much for this interview and for your shows.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
It was forking great. Michael Schur created the new series A Man on the Inside. All eight episodes just started streaming on Netflix.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
If you'd like to catch up on fresh air interviews you missed, like this week's interviews with Selena Gomez or Jimmy O. Yang, and our conversation with New Yorker editor David Remnick and former Washington Post editor Marty Barron about the ways in which Trump might carry out his threats against the media, check out our podcast. You'll find lots of fresh air interviews.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers' recommendations for what to watch, read, and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at whyy.org slash fresh air. ¦ Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Sam Brigger. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer is Adam Staniszewski.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Anne-Marie Boldenato, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly C.V. Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the new series A Man on the Inside. All eight episodes just started streaming on Netflix. Here's the interview I recorded a few days ago with the series creator, Michael Schur. Michael Schur, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
This series is based in part on a documentary from Chile about a man who goes undercover to solve a crime in an assisted living facility. What did you find moving about the Chilean documentary and why did you see it as having comic potential?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Did you do research going into an assisted living facility?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
I'm glad that was your experience. I apologize in advance for being Ms. Buzzkill. But my father was in assisted living for a few years toward the end of his life. And I helped him move in. I visited a lot. But he told me on the phone at the beginning, you know, there's no one I can talk to here. Everybody's like in cognitive decline.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
And then I thought like, oh, come on, you know, I'm sure it's not that bad. And so the next time I visited him, a woman came up to me and said, hi, nice to meet you. My name is, and I was a school librarian for many years. And I thought, see, you know, she was a school librarian. She's got to be, you know, pretty smart.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
And then I met her a few minutes later again, and she said, hi, my name is, and I was a school librarian for many years. And every time I ran into her, that's exactly what she said. And I realized, oh, she's having serious cognitive issues.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Here's David's review.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
You've done so much about ethical decisions, especially like on The Good Place and the book that was almost like a companion to it. And one of the questions in the series is, is it okay for the Ted Danson character to go in and video and audio record people without their knowledge? Because he's there to spy. I mean, he's the John le Carré of assisted living. Right.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
And, I mean, he's even reading a John le Carre book in bed before the plot kicks in, before he knows about this job. Yeah. So, yeah. And the episode's called Tinkered Taylor, Older Spy.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
A great title. But anyway, so he's, you know, one of the questions is, is it ethical to record people without their knowledge? Did you think about that a lot?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
You've worked with Ted Danson on two series.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
On The Good Place and now on your new series, A Man on the Inside. I love watching him. I think he's like fantastic. What is great about working with him?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Your previous series, The Good Place, was all about ethical dilemmas and who gets to go to the equivalent of heaven and who gets sent to the equivalent of hell and how your character and your decisions and your actions are measured to determine that. And you wrote a whole book that's part funny, part serious about philosophy and the great philosophers.
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
What made you want to do something like a comedy series that's really about, you know, judging behavior and judging, you know, moral and ethical decisions?
Fresh Air
'Parks And Rec'& 'Good Place' Creator Michael Schur On His New Show
Which played a bigger role in your life, religion or philosophy, when you were coming of age?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
In The Good Place, series creator Michael Schur put an awful lot of trust in Ted Danson, not only in his audience appeal, but also in his acting ability. That series was about a woman, played by Kristen Bell, who awakens in the afterlife with Ted Danson as her guide. Its brilliant twist, revealed after a full season, was that Danson's character wasn't who he pretended to be.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
It required the actor to switch gears significantly in midstream, and Danson was great at it. And in A Man on the Inside, the new Netflix TV show re-teaming Shure as series creator with Danson as star, the story starts with him pretending once again. Improbably but charmingly, this new eight-episode comedy series is based on a documentary from Chile.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Called The Mole Agent, and also available now on Netflix, it was nominated for an Oscar in 2021 and shown on the PBS series POV that same year. It told the true story of an elderly man hired by a detective agency to go undercover in a nursing home. The client's mother, a resident of the home, complained of the theft of a family heirloom.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
So the detective agency advertised for an elderly man, hoping to place him in the home temporarily to find the culprit. Inspired by this story, Michael Schur starts his version by introducing us to Ted Danson's character of Charles in a home movie flashback from his wedding day many decades ago. Then it cuts to Charles in the present day in Oakland, California.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
He's a widower, a retired professor, and even though his daughter and her husband and kids live nearby, has a rigid and solitary daily routine. That routine is interrupted one day by a suggestion from that daughter, Emily, played by Mary Elizabeth Ellis.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Okay. It's a good challenge. I accept. To widen his horizons, Charles answers a classified ad in the newspaper, which had been placed by a private investigator named Julie, played by Lila Rich Creek Estrada. It listed a job offer for a male between 75 and 85. Because he could use a cell phone, Charles is hired by Julie to infiltrate the nursing home for a month or so.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
A mission Charles feels more optimistic about than his employer.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
That's all I needed to hear. Once Charles crosses into San Francisco and moves into the nursing home, a man on the inside really comes alive. Stephanie Beatrice plays Dee Dee, the director who oversees things, and she's as clever as she is caring. The roles of some of the residents are filled by some long-familiar actors. Sally Struthers from All in the Family is one, and Susan Rattan from L.A.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
Law is another. It's nice to see so many older actors given so much to do in a TV comedy, and it may be the first time it's been done, at least so successfully, since The Golden Girls. But A Man on the Inside isn't just in it for the laughs. It's a comedy, but it's also much more. It uses music very poetically. And poetry, too.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
And as with The Good Place, there's a lot of talk about life and death and the importance and difficulties and treasures along the way. Alzheimer's is treated here at length and with dignity. And one reason it all works so well is because Ted Danson is as good at drama as he is at comedy. You can watch all of A Man on the Inside in one self-contained binge, and that's not a bad way to go.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Comedy Writer Michael Schur / Actor Jimmy O. Yang
It's one of the sweetest TV series since Ted Lasso. And the mystery Danson's Charles is hired to crack is neatly wrapped up by the end. But there's a hint that as with Sherlock Holmes or those podcasters of Only Murders in the Building, there may soon be other cases afoot.