An Interview with Brandon Gardner from ‘In the Know’

IN THE KNOW -- Pictured: "In The Know" Key Art -- (Photo by: Peacock)

Brandon Gardner is a writer, producer and actor, that currently serves as Co-Creator, Co-Showrunner and Executive Producer of the upcoming Peacock series, In the Know, and we here at NTG were fortunate enough to speak with Brandon to discuss this dynamic new series.
 
John Betancourt: I would love to know what inspired the creation of this show.
 
Brandon Gardner: So yeah, the first step was Mike Judge had an idea, a very loose idea that it would be fun to do an animated interview show. And he was thinking about where it'd be fun to set that. And he was thinking, “Oh, public radio is something that hasn't been done for that,” like Space Ghost is something that people think of all the time as it is something that’s similar. But he was like, “Oh, it'd be different if it was set in a public radio setting.” And I think when he thought of public radio, he almost immediately thought of Zach (Woods), who had he had done Silicon Valley with. I think he thought of Zach, both because Zach is a longtime listener of NPR. But also, somehow, he would admit, he sort of like embodies an… “NPR-ness” to himself. And I think I do to a certain degree as well. And also, he knew that Zach was an improviser. And he knew he wanted the interviews to be unscripted. And so, Zach, and I had been writing together, we originally met, doing improv at UCB together and started writing together. And so, Zach brought me on to help develop the world. And the thing I think, that got us really excited was less making fun of NPR, but more the chance to sort of make fun of people like Zach and myself.
 
John Betancourt: To kind of expand upon that further, because we don't really see a lot of interview shows like this, in fact I think Space Ghost is the only one that comes to mind for me, what inspired that particular format?
 
Brandon Gardner: Part of it was that when Mike first had that idea, it was in early 2020. And the very beginning of the pandemic, where practically people, were just trying to come up with other ways to do interview shows, even shows like The Tonight Show, were done remotely. And so, I think that was a big part of it with the very beginning of the idea was like, “well, maybe this would be a show people could do safely while interviewing people.”
 
John Betancourt: What does it mean to you to have such a unique and original show hit the airwaves so soon?
 
Brandon Gardner We're very excited about this. This is the only show I've ever worked on (as an executive). So, I have nothing to compare it to. But like the thing that Zach and I have said to each other many times in this weird period where we're waiting for it to come out. Is that, whether or not people like it or don't like it or watch it or don't watch it. We're so grateful for how it came out, that the people at ShadowMachine and the writers, and the cast… all were so good. And we're so proud of it. That if it's one of those shows that people just don't hear about it, at least it's a show we had such a great time making and can be proud of.
 
John Betancourt: What are you most excited for audiences to experience when they when they tune into this?
 
Brandon Gardner: I think one thing that we're excited about is the interview part of the show because it's iso unusual. And I think one thing that we're excited about, our viewers coming in maybe because they're a fan of one particular guest, like maybe they're a Finn Wolfhard fan, or they're a Mike Tyson fan or Roxane Gay fan. And then they end up being surprised, both by what those people reveal about themselves, maybe people that they already really liked or like, “Oh, I didn't know this about you, or you were a little bit more playful than I've seen you before or intellectual in a way I haven't seen you before.” But then also that they might see people who they only know vaguely, and get excited about them and be like, “Oh, wow, it's like I've maybe like read a Roxane Gay column that was very serious and sort of intimidated me with how smart she is. But I didn't know how playful she could be.” And so that's something I'm excited about, too, is for people to see different sides of these people that are famous, but maybe you've only seen one way.
 
John Betancourt: Now since you mentioned this was you know, your first major show along those lines. What does that mean to you to be able to be a part of this?
 
Brandon Gardner: I mean, I'm like very proud of it. Like my most of my adult life. I've done improv, which is how Zach and I know each other. And I still love improv, but improv, like part of it is that you have to be there and then it's gone. So, it's really nice to have made something. It took a long time to make it, it took over a year to make it but it's nice to like, oh, now this is something that at least for a period, you never know with streaming, will be something that will live and people can enjoy.
 
John Betancourt: And that leads me to my last question that I have for you today. What are you most proud of when it comes to this show?
 
John Betancourt: I think what I'm most proud of is that even though we really want the show to be funny, and the show is a satire, that I think we did a pretty good job of never having the characters only be sort of punching bags for jokes. That we really wanted them to always feel like real people and to be complicated, and I think sometimes we would think of funny stuff. But if it couldn't be rooted in who they were as people, we let it go.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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