Netflix doubles down on developing its comedy programming for authentic laughs

When Netflix executives decided to go all in on comedy, they believed that all they needed was the right talent with big dashes of comedic timing, humor and authenticity. It’s paying off.

The streamer’s takeover of the comedy world — from specials, to TV shows and now comedy festivals — is part of a plan to bring the genre to the masses in a variety of ways that develops new talent, combined with some established names and fresh takes on humor that give its footprint on comedy a distinct signature.

Michelle Buteau — a multi-talented stand-up comedian, actress, host, writer, and more — has proven she can land her humor with a variety of audiences. But part of Buteau’s comedic talent comes from her love of good storytelling, whether it’s about being a parent or trying to find a way to casually bond with Jennifer Lopez about having the same birthday.

It’s even better when the person telling the story is their most authentic self. She said she’s leaning more into this as her comedy career continues to soar. She was in the movie “Babes” this past summer, is working on season two of her show “Survival of the Thickest,” and has been a host on hit Netflix series like “Barbecue Showdown” and “The Circle.” Her next comedy special on the streamer, “A Buteau-ful Mind at Radio City Music Hall,” is slated for release on Dec. 31. For this stand-up special, Buteau said she started making a list of things she wanted to talk about and in June 2021 booked a set every Tuesday at the Bell House in New York City where she could try new material. That led to her booking shows at City Winery, where those sets did well too.

“I hate when people are like ‘it happened organically,’ but it really did,” Buteau said of her preparations. “I have this other stuff to do, but I love stand-up, I love connecting with people and now we’re actually wearing pants and heels, and I’m like, ‘oh, the time is now, we’re just up, let’s go.’”

She said these days her comedy on stage and in films and television is constantly informed by her life and also people-watching. Buteau is also often thinking about the changing ideas of human decency in society and how she can use her platform to “to talk about hard things and weird things.”

“I love talking about my life,” Buteau said. “[But] finding a balance is important, having the utmost respect for people in your life and not using them as fodder all of the time, but definitely speaking about them in a more universal, bigger picture way, is something that will always sort of inspire me.”

Netflix’s foray into comedy programming started more than a decade ago with the release of its first original stand-up special, “Bill Burr: You People Are All the Same,” in 2012 and the season four premiere of “Arrested Development,” which it revived from Fox, marking its first major entry into scripted comedy. Since then, the company has continued doubling down on opportunities for scripted comedy series, stand-up specials and finding ways to entice comedians they work with to be involved in a variety of formats.

Comedians have been a longtime part of the Netflix brand, including stand-up specials from Katt Williams, Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Ali Wong, Jo Koy and Gabriel Iglesias, and others. Netflix’s first live stand-up special was in 2023 with “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,” which became Nielsen’s most streamed comedy special and made the Netflix Top 10 in seven countries. The streaming service also launched its “Netflix Is a Joke” brand in 2020 and in 2022 launched the titular comedy festival featuring hundreds of artists and shows over a near two week period.

But Netflix is also eager to help comedians take their talents to different formats, including scripted series and reality television shows.

Kristen Bell as Joanne and Adam Brody as Noah in “Nobody Wants This.”

(Stefania Rosini / Netflix)

Bela Bajaria, chief content officer for Netflix, said part of the company’s success with comedic programming is seizing opportunities for creative stories the writers and comedians they work with want to tell. She pointed out, “Audiences can feel and are pretty attuned to when something does feel like it’s authentic,” and the company has seen success with shows that tackle interesting themes through humor. She pointed to shows like “Never Have I Ever” from Mindy Kaling, which explored Indian American families and cultural identity, and the recent “A Man on the Inside” from Mike Schur, which looks at themes of aging and grief. Schur previously co-created “Parks and Recreation,” “The Good Place” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” and was a writer and producer for the American version of “The Office.”

“Our strategy has always been about ‘we love comedy, our members love comedy’ and we also know they have lots of different tastes,” Bajaria said. “It’s to also make sure that we have comedy in lots of different formats, we’re just not narrow, and so that’s why it ranges from series to film to live to stand-up all over the world.”

Bajaria expressed excitement about the streaming service’s big success with “Nobody Wants This,” a show created by Erin Foster and Steve Levitan and featuring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody. The show followed Bell’s agnostic character and Brody’s rabbi character as they navigate their religious differences amid mutual attraction. The romantic comedy went viral when it was released in September and was renewed for another season two weeks after its debut. Netflix executives said the show spent six weeks on the streaming service’s global top 10 and reached the top 10 in 89 countries. The show had 48.7 million views during this time.

“‘Nobody Wants This’ is a beautiful example of a show that was really exploring romance in a kind of mature, great communication sort of way, which isn’t always explored in rom-coms, and exploring very specific cultures,” Bajaria said. “But it really I think resonates with people to understand there’s romance but there’s families and there’s cultures, and how difficult that can be, but also how beautiful that can be.”

Ted Danson stars as Charles in Mike Schur’s “A Man on the Inside.”

(Colleen E. Hayes / Netflix)

In the series “A Man on the Inside” starring Ted Danson, the show follows the adventures of Danson’s character as he decides to shake up his life and work with a private investigations agency to figure out who is stealing from fellow older adults in a retirement community in San Francisco. Schur, the creator of “A Man on the Inside” said the show “is the squishiest and the most vulnerable and the most emotional” he’s worked on when considering issues of aging, grief, family and more. While America will always be “obsessed with youth,” Schur said part of the magic of “A Man on the Inside” was seeing actors like Sally Struthers, Margaret Avery and Stephen McKinley Henderson getting to show they never stopped being great actors just because they got older.

“There just are very few shows where those folks can strut their stuff and we made a pretty big bet on the idea that we would be able to fill out the ensemble [cast] with really funny, good actors who were that age, and it instantly paid off,” Schur said. “It was just really delightful to see that instinct was correct, that if you just write good, interesting characters with jokes, there are people out there in their 70s who can knock it out of the park.”

Schur said one of the things that America is often bad at is talking about aging and confronting the idea of it. Part of the fun with writing the show, he said, was capturing the real-life aspects of getting older, such as residents with sexual desire and active sex lives and confronting head-scratching phrases like “toxic masculinity.” Schur said one of the funniest scenes in the show was during resident council meetings when people were saying their complaints. He said it was similar to conference room meeting scenes in “The Office.”

“We did research, and we spoke to this woman who manages a facility sort of like the one that [the show] is based on and we said, what are the top five complaints that people would register?” Schur said. “She was like, number one would be, the food is too salty, and number two would be, the food isn’t salty enough. And I was like, that’s a perfect joke. We just literally wrote it right into the show.”

Liz Feldman, the creator of the Netflix series “Dead to Me,” said she first started thinking about the idea of “No Good Deed” while house hunting during the COVID-19 pandemic. The show is slated for release Dec. 12 on Netflix, and includes Lisa Kudrow, Ray Romano, Linda Cardellini, Luke Wilson, Abbi Jacobson, O-T Fagbenle, Teyonah Parris and Poppy Liu. The series follows the lives of Kudrow and Romano’s characters as they work to sell their home after a tragedy and the hopes and secrets they and the prospective buyers have poured into the house.

Feldman said every time she and her wife walked into a new house, there was a story attached to why the owners were selling at that time, and “it was very often a pretty sad or dark or surprising story.” One of the homes they almost bought was being sold by musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic who couldn’t afford to pay their mortgage anymore because the organization shut down during the pandemic. Feldman said observing this and considering how much people want a safe place to call home made her think about what story she could tell.

“I just started thinking there was a really compelling story to be told that a lot of people could relate to for different reasons and also, everybody wants to buy the home of their dreams,” Feldman said. “We imbue these homes with so much power, so much importance and significance and symbolism and really at the end of the day, wherever you go, there you are. I’m always interested in that intersection of who we wish we could be and who we are.”

Feldman said while working in the writers’ room for “No Good Deed,” their mantra was to “find the fun” especially at a time when everyone is looking for escapism and something to laugh about. She said that she didn’t initially set out to write another show about characters’ varying journeys with grief but “it is a neverending well of difficult but beautiful inspiration.”

“I really think I’m here to sort of help people process the difficult moments in life through comedy and that gives me great purpose and so I’ve been focusing on that as much as I can for the last few years,” Feldman said. “I take all of that background of being able to write jokes and home in on different people’s voices, and I try to use that in the narrative storytelling I do now and try to represent different voices and challenge myself to write in different voices.”