The story behind one ofI Think You Should Leaves funniest moments from season two.
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Thats despite the success of its most popular show,Coffin Flop.
Theyre sayingCoffin Flopis not a real show, Robinson declares.
Its just hours and hours of footage of real people falling out of coffins at funerals.
(For the record, Max still has a very authentic horse phallus from that shoot.)
Because realistically, how many coffins are we going to be able to break in a given day?
It was an idea that Robinson andITYSLco-creator Zach Kanin dismissed immediately.
They were very certain that it should be like professional-looking footage, Max says.
There were crews getting sent out to funerals to film them; theyre not hiding.
Coffins are notoriously heavy, sturdy things designed to seal a human body off from the forces of nature.
I had to remove anything with sharp edges or any bolts that might be sticking through.
Its not like we could just throw away the coffins when we were done.
So we had to figure out a way to very quickly change out the breakaway panels.
When you get put in a coffin, theres a lot of people that cant breathe.
They get claustrophobic, Larioza says.
I had to find small people that fit the coffin.
Through multiple tests performed by Larioza himself, the look of the drop was refined.
Eventually, hamster bedding was added to the bottom of the coffins to create a bigger field of debris.
The next challenge was finding performers who could pull off each fall.
It was a unique gag.
It wasnt a fight.
It wasnt a car gag, it wasnt fire.
It was a coffin job.
And you rarely see that.
I cant have extras being the pallbearers and holding the casket, because anything can happen, Larioza says.
(Larioza hired his brother as one of the sketchs pallbearers.)
(According to Robinsons character, One out of every five of em are nude.)
But since it was winter, the crew had limited daylight hours in which to get every necessary shot.
That day was crazy, Holliday recalls.
We were moving through that cemetery so quickly.
The entire season, I think we only did like 24, maybe 25 [broken desks].
So we broke more coffins in a day than we broke desks on that other show.
Background actors were also key in selling the effect.
and stuff like that, just layering all that over in the edit.
The stunt had been performed successfully without a coffin by Simon on a location scout.
That was the first time I had seen [the staircase], Simon says.
I had a pad in my bag and I said, You know what?
Since were all here looking at these beautiful steps, why dont I just do it?
And I was kinda like, I want a third take!
I want a third take!
But I dont think we had time or the coffin resources.
In the final edit, the camera cuts away from LaVecchia fast enough that the sliding effect remains.
They cut it real quick, but it still looks funny, Larioza says.
(I thought we were maybe pushing things a little too silly with that one, Johnson says.)
Simon offers an even simpler take: Really, gravity is what it is.
I get to be creative, Larioza says.
Sometimes thats more fulfilling, you know what I mean?
