As distinctive and funny as HBO’s “Girls” is; as emblematic it is of a modern young woman in Brooklyn, they seem like entitled trust fund queens compared to the struggling duo on the new “Broad City” (Comedy Central, 10:30 p.m.).
Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, who developed their comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade and gained fans online, have a much more hand to mouth existence in a much grittier New York City, where jobs are hard to get, harder to keep, and there is so little money, people are trading Staples gift cards as if they are currency.
Hapless antics by the struggling working class is something that’s occurred in comedy since Laurel & Hardy and before. But Abbi and Ilana extend the trope into the 21st century in a New York City that’s rarely reflected in comedy.
With the occasional crude joke that makes it a natural pairing with “Workaholics” (Comedy Central, 10:30 p.m.) there is a female comedy component that has a strong backer in Amy Poehler, another UCB grad who is producing “Broad City.”
I asked them about their approach in a session at the TV Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena earlier this month.
Struggling comes easy to them, Jacobson said. “I think we were really trying to reflect how we were really living. I lived in Astoria. Ilana lived in South Brooklyn. We were, like, it was a struggle. We’re always like: How many bags can I carry every day with me?”
The two communicate through video chat, Glazer says, “because it’s hard to get from Brooklyn to Queens. There is the G train, but..”
“It’s a thing,” Jacobson says.
“The show idea, too, is to take something very simple, a simple task and show how difficult it is to get done in New York,” says Poehler, the recent Golden Globes winner for her work in “Parks and Recreation.” “So a lot of episodes are just a single day in the life of them trying to get a very small thing done.”
Poehler says she knew the two women’s work from UCB. “And then they asked me to do one of their web episodes, and so I kind of got to be on set with them and see how they worked,” she said. “And they were talking about bringing the show trying to make it into a television show and then we just kind of started the relationship from there.”
“For the most part, what we did in the web series, which we really tried to do in the TV show, was just draw from our own lives,” Jacobson said. “And then, in the show, we have a writer’s room, and so we’re always trying to draw from something real that’s happened to one of us or one of our friends and then sort of blow it up from there.
“We would meet to write the web series as well as now,” Glazer said, “it’s like we vent for, like, 30 or 45 minutes and then we’ll find in trying to come up with something, it’s like, ‘oh, what about the thing you were just telling me about?’ It feels it’s like easier almost to it is, yeah, to use your own real experiences or even, like, friends’ experiences.”
“There’s a lot of stuff in the show where the girls get harassed a lot as they walk down the street for different reasons, some positive, some negative,”Poehler says. “And their reactions are sometimes positive and sometimes negative depending on the mood that they’re in. And a lot of that comes from real life stuff, stories about Abbi and Ilana living in New York and walking down the street.”
“Our catcalls,” says Jacobson, “are rarely positive.”
Online and on TV, “Broad City” has been able to attract a number of big names, including, in addition to Poehler, Fred Armisen, Rachel Dratch, Hannibal Buress, Janeane Garofalo and Amy Sedaris.
Comics like to be a part of it, Poehler said. “Everyone’s been really familiar with Abbi and Ilana’s web show and work, and I think the tone of the show is really easy to get when you watch it. So we everyone’s been really excited that’s come and joined us for a day or a week to be there.”
In addition to the known names there are the rising stars at UCB — “next generation people, the people that you’ll be talking about and to a few years from now,” she said. “And Comedy Central is such a I feel is at a major point right now where it’s representing, you know, ‘Kroll Show,’ ‘Key and Peele,’ ‘Broad City,’ [Chris] Hardwick’s show, Amy Schumer. These are, like, really vital, like, up and coming and have come talents. That’s a terrible quote.”
“It’s such a great time to be on television,” Poehler said. “Television’s such a great medium for women. And what I like about ‘Broad City’ is that we have interesting, real female friendships and sexual premises that aren’t, like, the headline of the show. Like, there’s just, like, what young women their age are dealing with and going through right now.”