A Totally Fake ‘Party Down’ Revival Is Coming To Ryan Hansen’s YouTube Premium Show [TCA 2018]
Ever since its cancellation after two seasons, fans ofParty Downhave been hoping for a continuation. The show’s creators were writing a movie, but even after revivals ofX-Files, Full House, Roseanne, Will & GraceandArrested Development, there hasn’t been aParty Downrevival. Now fans can get a glimpse at aParty Downrevival, but will be a joke in the second season of YouTube’sRyan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television.
The Television Critics Association visited the set of Hansen’s YouTube Premium comedy series and noticed signs pointing to the set ofParty Upin the same font. It turns out, part of the story in season 2 ofRyan Hanseninvolves the filming of aParty Downreboot, calledParty Up. Original Party Down star Ken Marino guest stars as himself, now directing theParty Upreboot.
Party Downstarred Marino, Hansen, Adam Scott, Lizzy Kaplan and Martin Starr as caterers who all have Hollywood aspirations, which sometimes crossed over with the hosts who hired them.Ryan Hansenproducer Beau Bauman explained theParty Upjokes in season 2.
Hansen gets upset when he discoversParty Upbecause he wasn’t asked to be involved. During a break from filming, Hansen told reporters that one scene involves a fight with Marino on a green screen stage, where Marino is wearing a full green suit with only his head exposed. The reason they’re filmingParty Up,a relatively simple show, on green screen is so they don’t have to decide on the background until later.
Within the world ofRyan Hansen,Party Upis also going to be broadcast by YouTube, creating a rivalry between Hansen and Marino because Marino is getting more money for his (fictional) show. “There are lots of jokes about the status ofParty Upversus the status of Ryan’s show,” Bauman said.
OnRyan Hansen Solves Crimes On Television, Hansen plays himself partnering with a real detective (Samira Wiley), for a show calledCelebrity Vice Squad.Ryan Hansenspoofs mismatched buddy cop movies, Hollywood itself, YouTube and social media as the fictional Hansen still goes on auditions and tries to get likes on his selfie videos.
WhenRyan Hansendebuted, YouTube’s premium service was called YouTube Red and the show joked about how it sounds like a porn site. Now that they go by YouTube Premium,Ryan Hansenmakes fun of that too.
“We also have a whole runner about how we make fun of networks that change their names,“Bauman said. “Last year it was YouTube Red sounded like a porn site. This year it’s changing their names because that’s really smart for building brand recognition.”
The show broke the fourth wall liberally with Hansen addressing the camera, as well as shooting his own first person videos throughout episodes. Every episode ends on the set of a sitcom when Hansen comes home to his “family” (his wife is played by Aly Michalka), because YouTube couldn’t decide on the show’s format. Bauman said they’re taking that joke further in season two.
“The joke in this scene is that Ryan’s children have been recast,“Bauman said. “They’ve been recast by kids who are teenagers. They’re older than his usual adorable blonde daughters and they look as close as we can to the teenage cast ofThis Is Us. BecauseThis Is Usis a big hit.”
Another running joke in the first season was that Captain Jackson was played by a different African-American actor in every episode, from Reginald VelJohnson to Yvette Nicole Brown. There’s a new captain joke in season two.
“The new captain is a lady captain,“Bauman said. “Her name is Captain Lade’ee. It’ll make sense when you see the name plate on her desk, maybe.”
In each of the first season episodes, the body count increased each episode. So episode one was one body, episode two a double homicide, three a triple until there were eight bodies in the finale. Instead of going for nine through 16, season two will have a serialized mystery.
“There are some things we’re doing the same as last season, some things we’re doing differently,“Bauman said. “We’re not doing the different body count per episode this season. We’re changing some things up.”
Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Televisionis expected to return either the end of 2018 or early 2019. Season one is on YouTube Premium now.
