Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Middleditch & Schwartz’ On Netflix: Duo Records A Trio Of Completely Improvised Comedy Specials

On the day the Upright Citizens Brigade announced it had shut down its New York City theater and training center, one of their many star pupils, Ben Schwartz, celebrates a trio of improvised comedy specials he recorded for Netflix with his friend and touring partner, Thomas Middleditch. Improv may rule by “yes, and,” but the first rule of comedy remains…TIMING!

MIDDLEDITCH & SCHWARTZ: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: You likely known Thomas Middleditch as the tech entrepreneur at the center of HBO’s Silicon Valley, and Ben Schwartz as the cocksure character Jean-Ralphio from NBC’s Parks and Recreation. If that’s too dated a reference for you, then you likely recognize Schwarz from his social-media crossovers with would-be doppelgänger son/nephew Joe Keery, who plays Steve on Netflix’s Stranger Things. No matter how you know them, you’ll know get to experience their improvised comedy skills in this trilogy of specials, all recorded while on tour last year.

Improv comedy, you ask? It’s all about the make-em-ups. Ad-libbing and riffing off of an audience suggestion, Messrs. Middleditch and Schwartz stage 45 continuous minutes of scenes for your amusement and enjoyment.

As Schwartz tells the audience in the first episode: “Everything tonight will be made up on the spot. Every character, every word, every sentence, everything in the universe. “This is iong-form improv, and we’e very excited to bring it to you in this special form.”

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Perhaps you saw the half-hour improvised special Schwartz got his House of Lies castmates to do with him in 2013 at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Hollywood. Or perhaps the 2005 Bravo one-hour ASSSSCAT special that Schwartz’s idols and teachers at the UCB performed, also at the Hollywood venue? Have you ever watched Whose Line Is It Anyway? Yes, and this is not like any of those examples. I’ll explain.

Memorable Jokes: The first episode, titled “Parking Lot Wedding,” comes from an audience suggestion up in the theater’s upper box, where a man explains how the couple sitting next to him just got engaged, and how their mutual friend group met in a parking lot.

Over the course of 44 minutes, Middleditch and Schwartz envision the couple’s wedding day through a variety of scenes, spinning out to include the best man, bridal party, friends and family and more.

There are no black-out lighting cues or applause breaks to transition from one scene to the next. Instead, we just see the two comedians bound across the stage to inhabit a new character, sometimes flipping into each other’s characters; sometimes, also, forgetting who they’re supposed to be.

In the second episode, “Law School Magic,” they open on a final exam for first-year law students, before spiraling to include scenes with aliens (illegal and extraterrestrial) and various types of magic. The third and final episode is the loosest of the three. “Dream Job” finds the duo getting meta with an elaborate interview process for a sketch-comedy guru who’s definitely not Lorne Michaels. Middleditch even stops the proceedings to make that quite clear.

Our Take: What’s great about improvised comedy is the complete lack of preparation. No lines to memorize. Everything’s a surprise. That’s also oftentimes what makes live improv such a dreadful experience for an audience member at a local theater, back when that was a thing. When you’re not watching professionally-trained improvisers, it shows.

That’s why, when you do see the pros do it, you’re usually watching them work within the confines of a structure. Their dialogue and jokes may come off the top of their heads, but there remains a framework that makes the likelihood of their jokes landing more plausible. Whose Line uses the competitive nature of short-form games to ensure comedy chaos. UCB’s ASSSSCAT format (also known as The Armando, named for improviser Armando Diaz which dates back to Chicago’s improvOlympic in 1995 and a show co-founded with Adam McKay and Dave Koechner) has a group of improvisers riffing scenes based on a story told by a guest monologist.

It’s not just about asking for and receiving a one-word suggestion shouted by an audience member. “Can I get an occupation, please?” “PROCTOLOGIST!” Sigh.

Middleditch and Schwartz start with a more open-ended question, then spend upward of five to six minutes asking follow-up questions to the person whose suggestion they accept, fleshing out the details and backstory, which they can then re-enact, and in the process, go off on wild tangents, before circling back and creating new variations on the initial scene.

Great improv seems like it’s not improvised at all. In fact, The Second City historically uses improvised rehearsals as a mining ground for their mainstage and touring sketch productions.

Two-prov allows the best comedians to shine. Nobody is coming off of the backline to tap them out of a scene or add a new character. It’s just you and your partner, playing off of each other, forced to remain in the moment for the entirety of the show. A more mischievous duo, such as Middleditch and Schwartz, will goad the other into intellectual and physical contortions, just for the sheer silliness of the act-out. Which can lead to confusion, mistakes, or accidental moments of breaking the fourth wall.

Middleditch and Schwartz do all of these things, and embrace it all with enthusiastic joy. Their joy is ours.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If actors believe comedy is hard, then improv comedy is harder. Translating a live improv comedy show to a TV audience? That’s double-diamond difficulty. And Middleditch and Schwartz are among comedy’s moguls.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Middleditch & Schwartz on Netflix