https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayPJcHHVfLE
Superior Donuts debuted last week on CBS and tonight at 9p, the show moves to regularly scheduled time. The comedy is about an elderly man (Judd Hirsch) set in his ways, who owns a donut shop in Chicago, and he hires an ambitious young African-American man (Jermaine Fowler) to work in his store. It is also about their differences and the similarities they have between them and six of their regular customers. Each week, they take on different issues, but at the end of the day, it is all about making a family you don’t want to kill at Thanksgiving.
On tonight’s episode, Franco (Fowler) tries to convince Arthur (Hirsch) to try baking some different flavored donuts. Franco’s donuts are hot and Arthur’s leaves them in a pickle. That is a hint to the flavors they come up with to test out. How will it go? You will just have to tune into this comedy that is as yummy as a donut fresh out of the over.
Now back to the show, in honor of the 6 regulars on the show, here 6 things you don’t know about it.
1 – In a year of remakes, this one comes from a different source. The show’s creator Bob Daily told us at the CBS TCA Winter Press Day, “Superior Donuts the series is based on Superior Donuts the 2008 play, written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tracy Letts. It is set in a donut shop in a gentrifying neighborhood in Chicago, my hometown. It’s a show about change and hope and renewal, a comedy about the lives of the eight people that hang out in the shop, but we’re also going to be exploring some issues that are topical and getting more topical by the minute, things like racial profiling and gentrification, gun control. “
2 – One of those issues deals with Arthur’s Middle-Eastern next-door business neighbor Fawz (Maz Jobrani) and he would do anything to own the Superior Donuts store. Daily revealed, “We have an episode coming up about a hate crime featuring our Muslim character.”
3 – The first episode that aired on Thursday was not the original pilot. CBS liked the show, but not their first take and asked them for a redo. The show’s star and creator Fowler talked about the changes. He said, “Well, they told me they were going they were just going to reshoot it. They didn’t tell us they weren’t going to pick it up at all. They said, hey, some things in the original pilot didn’t work and we’re going to reshoot it to make them work. And the script within that time just got sharper from the extra months of just retooling and reshaping the story, and that’s what’s changed the most, besides getting Judd and Katey (Sagal) on the cast. So those are the three changes.”
4 – Now if you have someone legendary like Judd Hirsch audition for the role, how do you convince him to do it? He told us about the gift they sent him to offer him the role, “I was doing a play in the Berkshires and a dozen donuts comes in the mail and I’ve never been asked to do a play because they sent you a gift. Uh, that’s the way it turned out.” Did he eat his gift? The owner of the donut shop on TV gave them to the crew instead.
5 – Hirch did give the show a gift in return. He was working with Katey Sagal on another CBS sitcom when she was reading for the part. The Married…with Children star explained, “Well, Judd told me I should do it. That was the first thing that happened. Because I met Judd. We were doing Big Bang, and I was Penny’s mom and he was Johnny Galecki’s dad. And then, that day when I was doing it, they sent me the script to this and Judd said, ‘You should do this. You should do this. You should do this.'”
6 – Since this show takes place in a donut shop, do they eat them? Fowler said, “We eat the sh!t out of those donuts.” While Sagal claims, “I have one a week.” Then there’s Hirsch who had the best answer of them all, “Don’t ask that question because they’re going to see a weight difference between show 1 and show 20.”
Check out the show every week to see if you can notice that weight difference on the sitcom that is as addictive as well a scrumptious donut from your favorite shop.
