'Baskets': 5 Keys to Understanding the Weirdness
You’ve probably seen the ads for FX’s new series Baskets, and you probably recognize at least two of the names behind it: star Zach Galifianakis and executive producer Louis C.K. But those ads are so oblique and surreal, and plot details have been so scarce so far, that it’s understandable if you don’t quite get what it is, exactly.
Related: Ken Tucker Reviews ‘Baskets’
We’re here to help: Yahoo TV reached out to executive producer Jonathan Krisel (Portlandia), who co-created Baskets along with Galifianakis and C.K., so he could help us piece together the mystery before Baskets debuts this week. Here are five things you can expect to see from this very unexpected series.
1. Don’t think of it as a comedy.
Galifianakis stars as Chip Baskets, an aspiring clown who flunks out of a prestigious clowning school in Paris and is forced to return home to Bakersfield, California to work as a rodeo clown. And you’d be forgiven if you assumed that a half-hour series starring the bearded dude from The Hangover as a freaking clown would be a comedy. You’d be wrong, though. “I would say that the real pitch is that it’s a family drama,” Krisel insists. “It’s not a comedy. We’re calling it a slapstick drama. It’s extremely dramatic, and not in a parody sort of way.”
But Krisel is quick to add that the show is not completely devoid of laughs: “There’s also a lot of pratfalls. There were three broken tables. The writing’s going more towards a family melodrama, but the comedy’s going more extreme slapstick. And we’re trying to meld those two.”
2. Most of the cast is made up of non-actors.
Krisel has incorporated a number of amateur performers into his Portlandia sketches, and he continues that trend on Baskets, where Galifianakis is maybe the only recognizable face you’ll see. The show’s Bakersfield is populated with colorful eccentrics, including stand-up comedian Martha Kelly as an insurance agent who helps Chip with a claim and ends up becoming his only friend in town. “There are a lot of weirdo types of people in the cast,” Krisel says. “But you love them, and they’re not actors. Their performances are so real and raw and funny, and also hopefully somewhat moving.”
3. You’ll see one comedian in a way you’ve never seen him before.
There is one other familiar face in Baskets… but he’s not exactly “recognizable.” Stand-up veteran Louie Anderson plays Chip’s mother Christine, in a totally straight-faced, gender-swapping performance. “Even from the moment Louis C.K. called me and told me about Zach and him wanting me to play the mother, I immediately thought, ‘What?’” Anderson told reporters at FX’s winter press tour. He took the gig seriously, though: “I wanted to really be Zach’s mom and not make it cartoonish… they put the wig on, and once that lipstick got on, I was done. I played it completely as a mom.”
But how did Anderson even get cast in the first place? Galifianakis told reporters that he originally wanted Brenda Blethyn for the part, and when she wasn’t available, he did an impression for Louis C.K. of what he thought Chip’s mom should sound like — to which C.K. responded: “You mean like Louie Anderson’s voice?” One of Anderson’s stand-up impressions is of his own mother, Galifianakis explained: “Louie had been kind of channeling his mom on stage for a number of years, so the character kind of came along with that. So we kind of got lucky that way.”
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4. It’s set in a California you rarely see on TV.
Plenty of TV shows are set in glossy, glamorous Los Angeles, but a couple hours north lies dusty Bakersfield, where Chip Baskets finds himself as the series opens. It’s a land of barren desert vistas and Costco parking lots… and a far cry from Paris, Krisel says. “One is the most picturesque, beautiful place, associated with camaraderie and beauty. One is ‘get the cheapest price you can.’ [Chip] is trying to live a Parisian life in Bakersfield, and it’s just almost impossible to achieve the same things.”
Galifianakis also plays Chip’s brother, Dale, director of a community college
5. It’s not trying to be edgy.
TV these days is teeming with shows trying to push the envelope on sex and violence, especially on cable. But Krisel thinks of Baskets as an antidote to all that: “One of the things we talked about in the writers’ room was, we did not want to make it ‘edgy.’ There’s a lot of TV that’s about ‘Look how bad these people are!’ We are pushing the boundaries of… lameness.”
Baskets premieres Thursday, Jan. 21 at 10 p.m. on FX.
