Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman of Comedy Central's 'Corporate' on Bullseye
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Workplace sitcoms are nothing new, you've seen the same formula on television for decades. Comedy Central's new show Corporate is technically a workplace comedy. But on Corporate no one is happy -- in fact, everyone's a little depressed and angry working a soul sucking job at Hampton Deville, a giant multinational corporation. The company sells just about everything you can think of including: guns, tablets, televisions, and food produce like bananas.
The show follows the lives of Matt and Jake, two junior executives in training at Hampton Deville. They have just enough power and money to keep working there, but not enough to make any real impact in the company. The show was co-created by Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman, they play Matt and Jake respectively. Corporate also has a great supporting cast including Lance Reddick, Anne Dudek, and comedians like Aparna Nancherla and Baron Vaughn.
Corporate goes beyond your standard office water cooler talk and dives into deeper stuff - capitalism, art, the meaninglessness of life. The tone of the show is incredibly bleak. The desks are are so dimly lit it's hard to really see people in the cubicles, it almost feels like they are at a morgue. Often times you can make out a person playing solitaire, a guy sleeping at his desk. In one particular scene from the pilot a worker eats a pink piece of cake without any significant expression. Everyone at Hampton Deville is just trying to fill the void that exists inside of them. That existential dread makes the show so relatable and incredibly funny.
Jesse sat down with co-creators of Corporate Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman to talk about getting the shows tone right, pitching the show to a corporation, and how taking magic mushrooms inspired some episodes of the series. Plus, what it was like working with Lance Reddick, who played Cedric Daniels on The Wire.