Q&A with Creators of Facebook Watch's Animated Series HUMAN DISCOVERIES

I’ve enjoyed the first few episodes of the Facebook Watch show Human Discoveries. It’s had some fun moments. The show was created by Chris Bruno and David Howard Lee and I was lucky enough to get to ask them a few questions about the show. From the question about why Human Discoveries is on Facebook Watch to who their favorite characters are. Here are seven questions I got to ask them and the answers from Bruno and Lee themselves.

1. What were the circumstances that led to the creation of Human Discoveries? Were you simply talking about when people first figured out fire and it spiraled from there, or what?

Short answer, yes! Frankly, we were eating popcorn, and Chris wondered aloud who the first person was to take a corn cob and stick it over a fire. Fast forward three years, and here we are, releasing ten full-length episodes on Facebook Watch, with an incredible cast led by Zac Efron and Anna Kendrick.

But the long answer is, well, longer. It's no secret that we're living in fairly divisive times, and as writers, a big part of the job is observing the world around you. More and more, we found ourselves coming back to the same question: “How did we get here?!" Whether it's politics, relationships, or etiquette at the dinner table, everyone already seems to have their mind made up, and as a result, it's hard to write something that cuts to the core of why and how things came to be without alienating half the audience before the conversation has begun. With HUMAN DISCOVERIES, we wanted to take a big tent approach to the show, and make it about all of us, regardless of where you're from or who you voted for.

So, the concept was born out of the idea that everything started somewhere. First, it was the big ticket items like fire, which probably didn't come from some brilliant inventor, but rather a mediocre hunter who wasn't too good at his job, and after the umpteenth unsuccessful hunt, threw his spear at a rock in frustration. This accidentally created the first spark, and thus, humans earned the gift of fire.

This felt like a fun way to explore other, more contemporary ideas. Because somewhere along the way, there was a first person to suggest making their relationship exclusive, rather than just sex for the purposes of procreation. Someone first stumbled upon alcohol, and thought the fun of lightly poisoning yourself every night was worth the following morning's hangover. And some pretty terrible person, somewhere in the long arc of history, looked at someone else for the first time and said, "I don't like that person..." And was willing to finish that sentence with "....because of the color of their skin."

So, our goal with HUMAN DISCOVERIES was to take a look at where we are today through the lens of where it all began.

2. Why Facebook Watch?

When we pitched the idea in 2017, Facebook immediately stepped up and expressed interest in making the show. We loved their enthusiasm and support from the start, and that’s remained a constant ever since that first meeting. They’ve been terrific creative partners, thoughtful note-givers, and personal champions of the show. And on top of all that, they’re wonderful people. It’s a special group over there, and we’ve viewed the first season of the show as the beginning of a great partnership.

In addition, the potential with Facebook Watch is immense. We designed this show to be fun, topical, and relatable to audiences of all kinds.

3. Marsh feels like a very personal character and like he's based on a specific person, is this the case? If so, who?

The first thing Chris and I ever made was a show called THE PURSUIT for Yahoo! Screen back when they were getting into original content. Unfortunately, their entire operation fell apart before we went into production, but we did get to do a full writer’s room for the season. Given it was our first show, we brought in a guy named Marsh McCall to help us run the room and make sure we didn’t screw the whole thing up. Marsh was a fantastic person, and very patient with us as we navigated the perils of a first-time writer’s room.

Sadly, Marsh passed away suddenly a few years ago. Our other EP, Kirk Rudell, also happened to be very close with Marsh, so we all decided that we couldn’t do HUMAN DISCOVERIES without paying homage to the original Marsh. Not surprisingly, he’s one of our favorite characters. He’s hilarious, of course, and played by legend Ed Begley Jr., but also he’s also an important reminder to all of us of the original Marsh and what he meant to us.

4. How did you come up with the elk? They are my favorite part of the series.

Thank you! We love them, too. When we originally came up with the idea for HUMAN DISCOVERIES, we were excited to use it as a platform to satirize modern society. But as we started breaking the first season, we quickly realized that if our characters were going to skewer 2019 humanity, we needed someone to skewer humanity in general. We needed a greek chorus to remind the audience that, almost always, humans kind of ruin everything. No matter the place or time. Hence, the elk were born. They’re arguably the smartest, wisest characters in the show, yet they’re technically prey. It doesn’t make sense. Which makes perfect sense.

Judy and William Elk are very personal to us for other reasons, too. Judy is named after Dave’s mother, and William is named after Chris’ brother. We’re not sure how they feel about being portrayed as Elk who almost die every episode, but I’m hoping they at least appreciate the acknowledgement.

5. What was your favorite discovery to write about?

No show is every born fully formed. It’s something you find along the way. And a big part of the fun of this show was the evolution of how we dramatized the discoveries. There are so many plots we love from early on in the season, and we had always started the pitch based on the idea that epochal shifts in human society probably came out of really stupid, inconsequential moments (Fire comes from Gary’s embarrassment over soiling himself in front of the entire camp, alcohol is the result of Trog burning his mouth on hot food and finding relief in some fermented grape juice). But once we had created the world and introduced the audience to the characters, the plan was always to explore bigger, more contemporary topics. Some of our favorites were gun control, immigration, and the modern economy, all of which we approached from a fundamental, unbiased perspective. It was always really important that we told both sides of the story, and didn’t allow our own political views to alienate any viewers.

But, above all, our favorite episode is the season finale. In it, we explore life, love, death, mortality…and perhaps most importantly, the universal condition of human selfishness.

6. Who is each of your favorite characters, and why?

We love each of our children equally, and for their own reasons, and couldn’t possibly pick a favorite. But we can tell you that Zac and Anna attached themselves to she show before we sold it, so we had the unique advantage of building the characters in collaboration with the actors who would play them. This was a huge asset to the creative process, and allowed us to tailor certain traits, quirks, and storylines about Gary and Jane to ideas and concepts Zac and Anna were interested in exploring.

Once we started pre-production, Facebook gave us a lot of latitude in the casting process. We wanted to take some big swings with the supporting cast, and wrote many of the roles towards people we’re just fans of, hoping we might get lucky with one or two of the offers. Somehow, they all said yes, and now we’ve got this unbelievable cast that includes Lamorne Morris, Jillian Bell, Lisa Kudrow, and so many others.

7. You tackle a lot of current social issues in the show. Is it hard or easy to write them in the "dawn of time" setting? If it varies, can you give some examples of each?

We always considered the “dawn of time” setting as a feature of the concept, rather than a bug. And in many ways, it’s the central underpinning of the entire show. This show takes place in the moment right after humans went from being obsessed with survival, to being annoyed by surviving. It’s the first time in the history of our species people ever had the time or energy to stop and say, “Why is this the way that it is? And should it be different?”

So the goal was to take the things we’re all struggling with in 2019, and give them to characters who think, talk, and act exactly like us, but don’t have any social infrastructure around them. There is no etiquette. There are no laws. The canvas is entirely blank. Which allows us to interrogate ideas, traditions, and social constructs without any preconceived notions about what’s right or wrong.

And the beauty is, the potential for the show is almost infinite. Sure, we tackle big things like gun control and immigration in season one, but we’re also hitting smaller, funnier things like exclusivity in relationships, selfishness, and why the hell we give housewarming gifts.

The list of topics for future episodes may be limitless. And that’s the best kind of show premise there is.