Kristen Schaal said that she was fired from the South Park writer’s room after one month. The adult animated sitcom has been a huge hit for Comedy Central, which originally started in 1997. The show was created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It follows four young boys named Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick. Living in their small town in Colorado, they get into wild antics that satirize topics that cover current events, pop culture, politics, and more.
Before moving into other forms of entertainment, Schaal started her career in live comedy, where she earned the award for “Best Alternative Comedian” at the 2006 HBO US Comedy Arts Festival. However, her performance in HBO’s Flight of the Conchords is what truly put her in the spotlight. She now has a wide array of credits, although she’s currently best known for her voice roles as Louise Belcher in Bob’s Burgers and Mabel Pines in Gravity Falls.
In an interview with The Last Laugh podcast (via The Daily Beast), Schaal talked about her experience being hired as a writer on South Park. However, she expressed that she only lasted for around a month. She was initially delivered a warning due to constant pitches. They ultimately decided to let her go, which she is now understanding of. She noted that she was “too nervous and excited” to be there, but was still hurt when it initially happened. However, she went on to meet her husband while working on Snake N Bacon afterwards. See below for her full comment:
“I didn’t last long. I was there [writing] for like a month and I was told — I got a warning that I was talking too much. I was pitching too much. I’d never been in a writers’ room before. So I was just like, let me earn my keep. I was like, ‘How about this? How about this? How about this?’ And that’s not how it works.”
“I couldn’t go there, so I just kept pitching another thing. So looking back, yeah, they let me go. I could do a writers’ room now, just for everybody listening, but I was too nervous and too excited to be in there.”
“When I got the call that I’d been let go, it was devastating. So I was devastated, but I remember I talked to James Bobin, the co-creator of Flight of the Conchords, the day I got fired. We had margaritas. And he was like, ‘Ah, f— it.’ He gave me good advice. He said, ‘You’re going to get fired, you’re going to get hired, it’s fine.’ And then I flew home and — jeez, this year was incredible! — I flew home and then I met my husband [former Daily Show writer Rich Blomquist] on this Adult Swim show called Snake N Bacon that he was executive producing. He asked me on a date. So a lot was shifting.”
South Park continues to be referred to as one of the greatest animated shows of all time. It has won an array of awards, including five Primetime Emmy Awards. With 23 seasons having aired thus far, South Park continues to be successful. The story moved away from being self-contained episodes that would reset and now has a more linear story that moves from one episode to the next. There have been a lot of changes over the years, so it’s interesting to get a peek at what doesn’t fly within the writer’s room.
Most of her credits are in acting rather than writing, although she still has an impressive career that she should be proud of. She has been voicing Louise on Bob’s Burgers for years, which is also an insanely popular series. Getting fired from South Park must have not felt very good, but she has clearly grown from the experience. Schaal has proven herself a powerhouse of comedy over the years, and it will be exciting to see her continue to be so. With Bob’s Burgers: The Movie still in progress, fans of the series will get to hear her voice talent in movie theaters sometime in the future.
Source: The Last Laugh (via The Daily Beast)
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