An Interview with the Executive Producers of ‘Mr. Throwback’

Key Art for ‘Mr. Throwback’ Courtesy of Peacock.

The highly anticipated comedy/mockumentary series, Mr. Throwback, is now available for the world to stream on Peacock, and to properly celebrate its arrival, we here at NTG sat down with the show’s Executive Producers, Matthew and Daniel Libman, and David Caspe, to discuss the creation of this ahow and more.
 
John Betancourt: I'm very curious to start with what it was that inspired each of you to want to be a part of this series.
 
Matthew Libman:  We’re all huge basketball fans.
 
David Caspe:  Yeah, we grew up – the three of us grew up in Chicago during the glory days of the Bulls, and have been enormous basketball fans since, and huge Stephen Curry fans. So, he was the driver. Once we heard he wanted to make a show, we wanted to be a part of it.
 
Daniel Libman: The remote possibility of being friends with Stephen Curry was my main entry point. (Laughter)
 
Matthew Libman: And then also the three of us and Adam Pally, just love working together, and have worked together so much, and have developed a shorthand. David and I have been, obviously Daniel and I are brothers, and David and I have been friends since the third grade, and we've worked together on almost every show we've done. So, there's a shorthand there and just a love of working together that you know, we would do anything together. So, it was a no brainer for all of us.
 
Daniel Libman: Some would call it a crutch. (Laughter)
 
Matthew Libman: It is. It's a huge crutch. Are you kidding? It's a massive crutch. Why? Why do anything alone?
 
Daniel Libman: Yeah!? When you could use a crutch!  
 
David Caspe: I would call it a burden, which is a little different.
 
Matthew Libman: Would you call it a ball and chain situation?
 
David Caspe: Yeah, I’d call it more shackles.
 
Daniel Libman: John, could you give us the Zoom? (Laughter from all)
 
John Betancourt: Not a problem. I could sit here this and listen to this all day. This is great.
 
Matthew Libman: It was such an innocent question, and it really turned south very easily.
 
John Betancourt: Hey that’s okay! It keeps this conversation honest!
 
Daniel Libman: We're gonna give you the raw, unfiltered, shit.
 
John Betancourt: That's what I'm talking about. So, with that in mind that also kind of brings up what kinds of challenges you ran into in having Stephen Curry be part of this show? Because the NBA season is close to year-round now.
 
Daniel Libman: Well, that's the biggest one. Is just he's, this might shock you, but he's a very busy, individual, individual. He's got an extremely busy day job and a lot of other obligations.
 
Mathew Libman: And a family life.
 
Daniel Libman: He's very devoted to and dedicated to his family. So, the fact that he even found time for this and us is truly humbling for us. And we were, you know, we felt really grateful to have the time that that we got with him, which was a lot to shoot, you know, as you know, these shows can be very time consuming to shoot, and he was all in and very generous with his time. And so, yeah, other than that, there that there were no, no real challenges other than just, you know, finding the time. And once we had it, it was, it was smooth sailing from there.
 
John Betanocurt: Obviously, I do want to dive into all the great aspects of this show. I was very impressed with the mockumentary style, very impressed that it has heart to it, and I kind of want to know from each of you, what led to the decision to create such a complex but also, you know, just wonderfully hilarious show.
 
Matthew Libman: You know, I think, I think some of the stuff that we're inspired by, some of the documentaries and also like dramas that we like, have so many layers to them and, you know, so many sort of like facets that are fun to kind of like, unravel and follow and different, you know, rich sort of fabric of characters. I think this is just sort of like what we what we lean into. And then I think once we were assembling the cast and realized what an incredible, incredibly gifted cast we had, it felt like we could do so much with them and give them so much that they could make even better. So, it kind of just became this like feedback loop of, you know, you know, us trying to, like, give these amazingly talented performers sort of material that was worthy of them being in the show. And it elevated our writing, I think, just to have them to write for. But no, it was very much just like the style lent itself to, like a certain, you know, depth that we were trying to hit and, and, and I hope we did.
 
Daniel Libman: It's just, you know, it was just sort of just identifying these little you know, parts of all these genres that really spoke to us and trying to pull them in, and, you know, put them under one roof. And that was sort of the fun, and the challenge of their elements, of sports documentaries, of the true crime genre, of the mockumentaries that we, you know, love and that were super influential for us, comedically. And just trying to marry all those things into one tone. Was really the baseline, and then, yes, trying to give our actors stuff to help us look good. 
 
David Caspe: I mean, I think we were really wanted to challenge ourselves to like, I think if you've heard that a sort of famous sports celebrity or something was doing a television show, you would maybe -- immediately your brain would jump to, like, a multi cam where they're kind of taking care of their family, or, you know, them and their kids or something. And so, we wanted to sort of try to really challenge ourselves to come up with what's maybe different than what people would think is the show. And I do think, for better or worse, of whether people like it or not, I don't know, but I do think that this is probably… in flipping it on… is not going to be the show they expected to see when they heard Steph Curry's doing a sitcom, you know?
 
And I think they'll also be, like, pleasantly surprised at how much it like, Stephen Curry is in this show, you know, I think, like, people would assume like, “Oh, he'll just, like, be on FaceTime at the start and the end of every episode,” or something like that. But he is firmly in the show as much as anyone else is, you know. So, yeah, we were just trying to kind of build out his world from there. And, you know, I think you see a lot about celebrities, and stars and stuff now, but you don't see quite as much about the world around them, you know. And so, I think we were just interested in the world around them. And, you know, a lot of times they say, like power corrupts, but I actually think, like, power corrupts people around people with power, oftentimes more than the actual person themselves. So that was something interesting to us.
 
John Betancourt: Actually, yeah, that was the first thing I did notice was that he is a huge part of the show and actually, David, you kind of lead me right to my next question. I am very, very curious, because there is a lot of heart to this show and in the journeys the characters go on, and I’m curious what you hope audiences take away from the heart, from an underlying message standpoint.
 
David Caspe: I will say myself, like the main thing that was really like, sort of touchstone for me from the beginning, and I think for everyone, was that, like, you know, almost every person has something in their past that that defines, or they believe, defines themselves or their life going forward. You know, a mistake you made, or something that happened to you. And, you know, I think we liked the idea of making a show that sort of acknowledges that everybody has that, you know, and that… I mean… this is way too pretentious for a comedy, for an interview about a comedy, but just that concept of, like, you know, everybody's got something that they regret or something that they think defines them. But we all have that, you know, and we should all get past it, you know, I guess was the general thought.
 
Matthew Libman: I would just say that it was hard really, because no one we know, has any issues with their dad. So, it was very it was like, we just had to just make that up. (Laughter from all)
 
Daniel Libman: None of the three of us at all.
 
Matthew Libman: And we're all parents, and we're like, so good at being dads.
 
Daniel Libman: We’re not even worried that any of the stuff – I mean there's not stuff with our dads could creep into our own parenting.
 
Matthew Libman: No, no, no, no. That's not even a concern literally or remotely.
 
David Caspe: Or even that the making of this show kept us away from our children for such an amount of time that that could affect –
 
Matthew Libman: Almost repeating the sins of our fathers inadvertently.
 
David Caspe: Yeah, exactly, and that down the road they'll be making a show also about fathers, is quite possible. No, John, I don't know, you know my favorite musician is Bruce Springsteen, and so I definitely spend a lot of time listening to art about dads, you know? So, I figure we should make some. (More laughter from all)
 
John Betancourt: I love that. So, focus groups. That’s how you got all this together because it’s three perfect dads. I love that. Now, everyone is so close to watching the hard work you put together and enjoying this series, and I’m curious what you’re all most excited or people to watch when they tune in?
 
Matthew Libman: I really think it is, honestly some of that the heart and some of the sort of, you know, sort of more slightly dramatic storytelling. I also just think, like you mentioned, the sort of subverting people's expectations of like, what a Steph Curry sitcom would look like, and kind of being surprised by what that ends up being. I think, you know, we put a lot of thought, like we are just as serious as you know about the writing, as we are about the production design, about the cinematography, about costumes, about music, about editing, about sound mixing, like we love the whole like, every aspect of what goes into making a TV show.
 
So, there's just so much that we're very proud of on the show. And besides us, we work with incredibly gifted people from production and post and editors and every director, Dave Wain did an amazing job. So, we're just, you know, it was such a crazy race and sprint to the finish here that we're just so grateful that we got it done. And we're just really excited for people to see everyone's sort of hard work on the whole team.
 
Daniel Libman: I'm excited for people to have a break. I think people need a break. And if they can take three hours and have a nice break and laugh a little, hopefully…
 
David Caspe: Sign up for Peacock in the process.
 
Daniel Libman: and like, maybe even, like, leave a tip. I don't know if that's a feature that they can do. (Laughter from all)
 
Matthew Libman: If there isn’t, write to your Senator.
 
Daniel Libman: Yeah, so you could sign up for like, a premium and then like, leave a gratuity, like you do at a restaurant? No, I think, I'm excited for people to hopefully just have a little bit of a respite and enjoy some comedy, which it feels like there is less of these days.
 
David Caspe: Yeah, I want people to see the whole, you know, Stephen Curry and the whole cast. I think we assembled really, a really killer cast and just, they're just one through ten, or something hilarious, you know, I'm trying to think of how deep it goes. But fifteen, one through fifteen, just absolute killers.
 
Daniel Libman: You know, I won't tell you who sixteen is, but they stunk. (Laughter from all)
 
David Caspe: It was just an insane cast. The writer’s room we had was so incredible. They just put in so much hilarious stuff. And yeah, the look and feel the show. I don't know. It's just a lot of really, we got to work with a lot of really, really talented people, and we, we really are proud of the product, so we're just excited for people to go and check it out.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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