Abbott Elementary is "like a jazz musician getting to play around within a popular melody"

Rolling Stone

As Alan Sepinwall points out, this season's freshman hit comedies all harken back to shows from the past. "This has been a pretty good season for new network sitcoms, including Ghosts on CBS, Grand Crew and American Auto on NBC, and especially The Wonder Years and Abbott Elementary on ABC," he says. "None are classics quite yet, and some have a bit of growing to do. But all have come out of the gate more sure of themselves, their characters, their tones, and their voices than we often see from freshman sitcoms, much less from this many of them airing in the same season. It helps, though, that all of these shows are riffing to some extent on past series." Ghosts is a remake of a British comedy, while The Wonder Years is a remake of an American comedy. Grand Crew seems to a Black version of hangout sitcoms like New Girl and Happy Endings, while American Auto evokes memories of both The Office and Superstore. "And Abbott Elementary, created by and starring Quinta Brunson, is basically, 'What if The Office or Parks and Recreation took place at a Philadelphia public school?'" says Sepinwall. He notes that being inspired by past shows isn't a bad thing -- Parks and Rec, for instance, was a sunnier version of The Office. "The best of these shows so far has been Abbott Elementary. Quinta Brunson never worked on The Office, Parks, or any of the other modern mockumentary series, but the series’ most frequent director, Randall Einhorn, did," says Sepinwall. "The setting and the stakes are different, but you can very much see a lot of Leslie Knope in the persistently chipper persona of Brunson’s second grade teacher, Janine Teagues. And you can see even more of Jim Halpert in the detached, bemused responses and glances at the camera of substitute teacher Gregory (Tyler James Williams). It’s not that Brunson or Williams are doing impressions of Amy Poehler or John Krasinski, but both are having fun finding their own take on these now-familiar archetypes, like a jazz musician getting to play around within a popular melody. A school proves an excellent location for this style of humor. The stretched funding of a public school (even in the Covid-free reality this show, like most current series, has opted for) provides endless fodder for dark comedy, while the kids — especially the ones in the kindergarten class taught by the school’s elder stateswoman Barbara (the divine Sheryl Lee Ralph) — are so young and full of sugar energy that they’re easy to turn to for a silly visual gag whenever the satire is at risk of feeling too bleak."

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• Abbott Elementary's emergence is even more special considering it isn't connected to big names or a legacy show: "Unlike other broadcast hits, Abbott Elementary doesn’t star big names and isn’t a spin-off from any legacy brand (like Young Sheldon or The Conners)," says Kevin Fallon. "There’s no edgy provocation or convoluted high concept used to attract viewers. It’s so much simpler than that. It’s an impeccably cast show with sharp writing and a lot of heart that, without being patronizing, feels incredibly current and resonant. Teachers deserve our attention! And, as Abbott Elementary makes the point week after week, much more respect and a lot more resources."
• Teachers are loving Abbott Elementary: Rennea Jackson, who taught second and third grade in Washington, D.C., says Brunson's sitcom resonates, including with the crazy principal. "Teaching is hard as hell, and there are so many failures within the system that people just have to get over," says Jackson. "You wouldn't go to your office and there's no air, or there's no HVAC, and they say 'Oh, you know what, we're just going to keep going and maybe they'll fix it by Memorial Day.' No. But in schools, you have to do that."
• Some teachers find Abbott Elementary hits too close to home: Maurice Watkins, a 28-year-old music teacher in Maryland, says the day after the first episode aired, “every teacher at school was talking about it.” But, Watkins adds, “some teachers I know can’t even watch it."
• Quinta Brunson isn’t bothered by those who think being the subject of Buzzfeed videos was what launched her to success: “I think it’s cool!” she says in a Vulture profile of her past life as the Buzzfeed Meme Girl. “It shows it doesn’t matter what you did first — all of these platforms are just ways for artists to flex their muscles.” As for the show's popularity, Brunson says: “I’m shocked. Sitcoms in the past, you watch them slowly build up an audience, so I wasn’t prepared for this.” Vulture's Ashley Ray-Harris says of Brunson's emergence from internet to TV star: "Although it has never been easy to turn internet fame into TV success, Brunson’s brand of comedy always seemed like a natural fit for television. Her character-driven sketches spotlighted her ability to world-build and, most important, to nail a punch line. But the media landscape was rapidly shifting; no one was sure how people even watched television anymore, and every tech company was trying to become a production company. Around 2016, Brunson started making shows for many of them. Her first two were done in partnership with BuzzFeed Motion Pictures: Verizon go90’s Up for Adoption, a mockumentary about volunteers at an adoption center, and Broke, a YouTube Red series about three friends moving from Philadelphia to Los Angeles to pursue their dreams. In 2017, she sold Quinta vs. Everything, in which Brunson tackles all types of life issues one episode at a time, to Facebook Watch. While characterizations of Black women often traded in respectability politics or showcased them as saviors, she wasn’t afraid to be silly, wrong, and imperfect. These shows laid the groundwork for Abbott Elementary, with Brunson drawing from her personal experiences to tell stories that reflected her life and community." As Brunson put it: “I was cutting my teeth on what it took to create television shows. I didn’t formally go to school for this, so it was like on-the-job training.”
• Brunson has heard an "overwhelming" response from teachers: "I’ve had teachers who have messaged me online, friends who are teachers who are really enjoying it," she says. "A friend of mine actually messaged me and said, 'Look, I hope this show makes people become teachers, because a lot of us are leaving.' Ultimately, they’re hoping it creates some type of change." How did she find a balance between addressing tough issues, but keeping the show funny? "We didn’t try to make anything funny that couldn’t be made funny," says Brunson. "There are some things that can be background jokes. In an episode about new technology, we very quickly talked about the school-to-prison pipeline. It’s a huge issue, but that probably can’t be a full-episode concept because that would change the nature of our show. We want to make sure it stays a comedy. There are always ways to insert these larger issues into the picture to get people thinking and talking about what’s going on in schools."