“Why is Archer so good?” w/ input from the cast

Why is Archer so good? This is a question I have been trying to get answers to all season, so whenever the awesome PR team @ FX Networks invites me in on a press conference call, I always listen and the answers the cast gives about the show might surprise some of you, but I think I might have found the answer. After the jump, get a run down of what I thought of this season’s Archer thus far and what I ultimately think is the reason this show is the cream of the crop with excerpts coming from Jon Benjamin(Sterling Archer), Chris Parnell(Cyril), and Aisha Tyler(Lana).

 

Season 3 of Archer has been really, really good starting with the already infamous “The Man From Jupiter” episode guest starring Burt Reynolds, and we here at Bubbleblabber are eagerly anticipating the two-part season finale guest starring another superstar in Bryan Cranston.

But, What makes Archer SO good? Is it Adam Reed’s  writing? Is it Matt Thompson’s stellar animation team as a part of Floyd County Productions?  If I were a betting man, I would say all of those things, but the thing that makes this show so special is how all the characters interact, whether its between Archer(played by Jon Benjamin) and the guest stars like last year’s David Cross and Patrick Warburton, or more importantly when its Archer and his fellow recurring cast members, specifically characters like his usual partner in crime-fighting Lana (played by Aisha Tyler), and Cyril(played by Chris Parnell).  These guys are the bread and butter of this show, particularly Lana and Archer where the chemistry is so good, they must be used to an environment where they get to bounce lines off each other in real-time, right? Welp, you’d be surprised as in a recent conference call Jon Benjamin actually compares and contrasts Archer to his other show Bob’s Burgers. Asked about the similarities:

Very little. There is not a lot of room. The scripts are tightly written and
he encourages sometimes on occasion, he’ll be like do you want to add
anything, and I’ll say no. So it’s (Archer)not the same kind of production as Bob’s
Burgers, which is a lot improvising all the time, but the scripts don’t
really require it.

He later states he actually prefers working alone in a booth ala Archer

 It’s much more efficient to record alone, obviously, so Archer is
quicker to do, which is a benefit, I guess, if I wanted to go shopping. It
doesn’t take as long—it’s not as long of a process, but there are occasions
when being amongst a group of people is a benefit for the show—not for
me but for the show. So, it just kind of depends on the day, I guess. I
have done, I think, once I recorded Archer and then had to go record
Bob’s Burgers or vice versa, and that day was too long.

 

Interestingly, when Chris Parnell was presented with a similar question at a different call about the challenges of acting when alone in a recording booth, he had a different take:

It’s a little challenging, in the sense that it’s very easy to go in there and then just
do the lines in a variety of ways without actually connecting to the lines,
to use a little actor speak, so I have to remind myself to try to be present
while I’m there. I sometimes picture the other actors there with me and
try to imagine that I’m really speaking to them. Adam Reed will, if it’s a
long back and forth kind of sequence I’m usually on the phone with him
in KC, or Matt Thompson, and we will read back and forth, I’ll do my part
and he’ll do the other parts.
But I’ve also found, having recorded in more group kind of situations,
especially if it’s scripted like Archer is, you probably don’t have the lines
memorized anyway, and so trying to actually look at or make contact with
somebody while you’re reading these lines, yes, there’s a certain energy
that can happen there that is helpful and it probably in some ways makes
it easier. But once you get used to it, it’s fine. I enjoy it. Time wise, it’s
fantastic. If we recorded it all together in a room it would certainly be a
lot of fun, because we actually all really like each other, but it would take
a long, long time. And this way I’m usually done in less than an hour.
So knowing all this, how is Archer any good? Welp, one would have to think of Adam Reed, and yes I could sit here and say how awesome he is until the cows come home, but the proof is in the pudding,and  as the ratings for Archer continue to climb and having already been told that the show has been renewed for a fourth reason, plus now becoming pretty much the official animation house for the hottest network on TV, the FX Network. So what do the cast think of Adam’s writing for Archer? According to Benjamin:

Adam Reed is so good at crafting narrative threads that run throughout
everything that like it’s kind of always a combination of one-offs and I
guess it’s like any sort of really good sitcom where you start to love all the
FX characters. He does such a good job keeping it vibrant. I’m sorry I said
that—keeping it vibrant. I never wanted to use that. I never wanted to
say those three words, but I think like when ‘Archer ‘got cancer and this
sort of first of three-parter—those were really fun to do.

 

Mr. Parnell had an interesting take as he compares Adam’s writing and FX to SNL and NBC:

Adam does surprise me sometimes, (with the writing) Part of it is not being used to having
these kinds of freedoms of what is said and the content and the subject
matter and all that, that you can do on a late night table show like Archer,
versus what we can even get away with on Saturday Night Live. The
censorship on SNL, the NBC censor was a lot more censoring than what
happens on Archer. And so that’s always a little bit of a surprise and a
delight to see what comes up in that. But honestly, not much surprises
me, and now certainly having a pretty good sense of what Adam is
capable of and his sense of humor and what he can get away with, there’s
not too much that surprises me on that anymore. But I guess I sometimes
read it, and although I’m not shocked, but I am like, oh, okay, cool, nice.
I wouldn’t have thought you would have gone there, but it’s cool.

Aisha Tyler then talks of how Adam and the voice crew make the show funny:

I think Adam and Matt and the other guys on the show are passionate
about comedy. There is joyfulness in the moment that we’re in the booth
making the show.

One thing we have to remember is that when Archer first premiered, some thought it might have been cancelled due to the low ratings, so if you have to thank anyone for why the show is so good, maybe the obvious answer is the FX Network for giving a good amount of time to kind of find its groove and its audience, similar to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia(ironically enough a lot of the crew on Philly now do a show with Matt Thompson and Adam Reed called Unsupervised). So, kudos to FX for sticking with great television, as I wish there were more networks like them(ahem MTV).  As one of Archer’s leading cast members would aptly put it:

—Aisha Tyler, “Thank God For FX”.

Be sure to catch Archer, Lana, Cyril, as well as the rest of the cast every Thursday Night at 10pm, only on FX.