Exclusive: Brad Neely on the Earnest Optimism Of The Harper House’s Family in a Fractured America

 

Brad Neely has been an exciting creative mind to watch ever since his days back on the creator-driven video platform, Super Deluxe, and has only blossomed over time. Neely’s specific brand of madness has built a dedicated audience and he’s established a distinct style, even if it can come at the expense of a mainstream following. Neely’s surreal comedy found a home on Adult Swim for several years with China, Il and Brad Neely’s Harg Nallin’ Sclopio Peepio, but he’s most recently become one of many top talents poached by streaming services under the auspices that he’ll creatively flourish with this newfound freedom.

The Harper House is Brad Neely’s new animated series for Paramount+ that looks at a well-intentioned but bad-behaviored family that reckons with their recent fall from grace when they’re forced to move to the poor side of town. The Harper House is an energized take on the family sitcom that features the voices of Rhea Seehorn, Jason Lee, and Tatiana Maslany. The Harper House reigns in some of Neely’s crazier impulses, yet still feels true to his unique voice as a creator. Brad Neely takes some time to open up on bringing The Harper House to life, his subversive approach to a family-oriented series that looks to The Simpsons and South Park for inspiration, and the utility in breaking his old habits when creating new art.

 

Daniel Kurland: I’ve been a big fan of your work since the Super Deluxe days and in a lot of ways this feels like your most restrained series–not that it’s not weird–after what was easily your strangest series. After Harg Nallin’ did you want to try to do something simpler? Where was your head at after that?

Brad Neely: Yeah, Harg Nallin’ I loved and I still think that a short-form variety, animated Monty Python-esque show is in my system. This is just kind of me trying out a different side of myself, that’s a little more formal in storytelling. It’s really going for a different type of a structured world. I tried to do that kind of thing with China, Il, but it just depends on where you are. Making a show for Adult Swim is very different from making a show for Paramount+. I like to know what the goal is before I get started in order to have very clear expectations on not just what happens, but the tone of things. We were able to define those goals pretty easily and now here we are. 

Daniel Kurland: Did you ever envision that you’d make what’s considered to be a “traditional” family sitcom, at least in terms of a show that’s focused on a quirky family? Was it exciting to think about how to subvert this genre in certain ways?

Brad Neely: Yeah, it was exciting. I kind of stumbled into making television and animated cartoons. It wasn’t a dream of mine, so this has always been a bit of “Let’s try this! And let’s try this!” In the back of my head there’s always South Park and The Simpsons as my Michael Jordan and LeBron James. I’ve always aspired to do it like they did and continue to do. So I feel like I’m working in both of those arenas. Early on I decided that this show would not have a meta aspect. I don’t want anyone thinking about me when they’re watching this. I want them to be immersed in the storytelling. 

Daniel Kurland: Well to that point, music has always been a huge component of your work and I was shocked when the show’s theme song was all instrumental without any lyrics. Was that a conscious choice on your part? Did you want to scale back or challenge yourself in that area?

Brad Neely: I did not do any of the music here. All of the music is handled by Mutato, which is Mark Mothersbaugh’s company. So it was a conscious choice for me to step back. I wrote 100 songs for Harg Nallin’, and maybe 60 of those aired. I was writing all of those around the same time that I was doing the musical finale to China, Il, so I really kind of hit the bottom of my musical gas tank, so it felt good to kind of focus on just the other aspects of production. I also don’t do a lead voice in this show. I do a lot of ancillary voices instead. So I really wanted to do a show where I lean on the talents of others in those places so that I could focus more on the writing and producing. That’s not to say that I won’t return to music, even within this show. I always said that if there was a pop song then I’ll write it, or if someone sings a song, but it just never came up when breaking the stories. 

Daniel Kurland: On that note, I’ve loved Rhea Seehorn’s work on Better Call Saul, but she’s a revelation here and just so goddamn funny. Can you talk a little on the casting for this series and how it took the shape that it did?

Brad Neely: I had to do a lot of the show during COVID from my laundry room after being with the writers in the writers’ room for a few weeks. Casting we did remotely and I had a lot of auditions sent to me and we auditioned a lot of people over Zoom while looking for the perfect Debbie. Rhea’s was in a batch of auditions and I didn’t know who she was. At that point I hadn’t watched any Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad, I just knew that she was the perfect Debbie. After we got her and I started working with her I investigated Better Call Saul and was like, “Oh my God! Shit! I’m working with a genius!” It worked out as well as it could have because it all came down to the work, not anything else.

Daniel Kurland: On the topic of Debbie, The Harper House has a wide range of characters, but it feels like it’s more female-centric with its perspective and that Debbie is often the lynchpin to it all. Why did that feel like an important element for this series?

Brad Neely: Well, to be honest and realistic on the matter: it felt like uncharted territory for me. There have just been so many stories told about the bumbling dad so I thought—and while it’s not a revolutionary idea or doing anything new—but why don’t we make that agent of chaos be the female. Let’s let the mom be the fuck up, and over-drink, and drive her car through her kids’ school. It just kind of felt like it’d be fun to see that for a change. That was part of it, but also when I first came out to Los Angeles to do television, some of my first ideas were just female leads or female versions of Homer that never went anywhere. It was before Bridesmaids and some of the other vehicles that had females upfront doing raunchy stuff, but here we are.

Daniel Kurland: It almost feels like “Pony: The Series” from China, Il.

Brad Neely: I like that! I like that.

Daniel Kurland: Debbie’s friendship with Tanya is also one of my favorite dynamics from the series. It’s just so natural and fun.

Brad Neely: I’m glad you think so. I’ve always just been a fan of following whoever is funny in a show and Absolutely Fabulous was a huge influence on me. I loved that show so much and I just loved those two ladies getting up to trouble together. I always wanted to have that as a component of the show. Sure, it’s a family show–technically—just like how China, Il was technically a show about a college, but you didn’t exactly see much teaching going on. This is like, “Okay, the setup is that we’re going to look at this family…,” but it’s really just about these four crazy people and the people that they share the world with. 

Daniel Kurland: Well I think you do do a good job of establishing these different environments within the series, whether it’s Ollie and Todd’s classmates at school, the stuff with the Harper family, the neighbors around them…It gives you a nice variety of supporting characters to pull from.

Brad Neely: The first half of the season—it’s a set of ten and I definitely made it as a set—the first half settles you in and the back half of episodes get a little crazier.

Daniel Kurland: Is the premise for The Harper House something that’s been with you for a while in some capacity, or is it a more recent idea that you came upon?

Brad Neely: I’ve had it in the back of my head for a while to do my take on a family show. I wanted to talk about my experiences, from when I was a kid, but I’m also now a dad. I wanted to be able to convert those things into funny stories. But you know, this particular show has been in development for five years. It’s taken quite a bit of time to come to fruition. Before that, I always have a running list of show ideas that I want to do, or if I think of something I like I’ll see if I can seed it into another idea. Whether or not those things will get produced or not, we’ll see, but The Harper House has always been around in my mind collecting ideas, but now it’s a reality.

Daniel Kurland: There are some great jabs at pop culture and society through the ads, television programs, and businesses that play out in the background. Did it feel beneficial to shine a light on that kind of hypocrisy and the absurd state of the world in a show that’s so focused on class strife and wealth?

Brad Neely: All of that is just the American life. I feel like I’m following in the footsteps of my hero shows, The Simpsons and South Park, that it’s our mandate to satirize the culture that is American life. American aesthetics are now so tied up in different things that you can’t talk about family dynamics without talking about what everyone is watching on TV. That’s just part of it now. My favorite television shows are the ones made by people who aren’t 100% in love with American pop culture. I definitely fall into that category myself and so I had to make fun of it.

Daniel Kurland: How did you decide upon awnings for Debbie’s family business because it’s really the perfect slice of mundanity.

Brad Neely: In real life, I don’t have a connection to awnings, but what I do share is a connection with Debbie’s distaste for the sun. I hate outdoor seating at restaurants because it’s just almost there. There’s an awning, and it’s casting shade, but it’s like 1000 feet into the street rather than on you. So it’s always just been a personal pet peeve of mine, but I thought that I could loudly air that grievance on a television show.

Daniel Kurland: It feels like the season is slowly culminating to Debbie blowing up the sun…

Brad Neely: Increasingly, that’s going to be the challenge for humanity! We’ve got to do something! 

Daniel Kurland: All of the members of the Harper family struggle with different changes, but I was impressed with how you treat Todd’s pain as a real thing and not just some joke about him being privileged. Talk a little about fleshing out that aspect of the character.

Brad Neely: That’s kind of loosely based on my personal experience. When I was a kid and growing up in Arkansas, I did move from the richer, more privileged side of town to the more neglected and poorer, yet more diverse, side of town. Personally, even though it was challenging at the time, I quickly learned that it was one of the best things to ever happen to me. As a person on Earth it’s never a bad thing to interact with more versions of the American experience. So I wanted to be able to put that somewhere and this show, through Todd, seemed like the perfect place.

Daniel Kurland: Similarly, this show isn’t afraid to go to weird places, but there’s a genuine sweetness that’s reinforced by the end of each episode. Was it important to really nail those emotional moments and not just prioritize the comedy?

Brad Neely: Absolutely. This was part of the challenge that I initially set up for the show. The way I sold The Harper House is that it would have the audacity of South Park, but the soul of The Simpsons. I thought that we could pull off those things. It’s a big, dirty family show. The kids curse as much as the parents curse, but I wanted to show that this is really a family of best friends. They stand up for each other. There’s also always a different perspective to consider the things that we’re talking about and no matter how you think about any topic, most people would agree that a family should look after each other and stick up for each other. There’s a lot of subjective topics in the world, but we all feel good when we see a family come together.

Daniel Kurland: Definitely. There are just so many shows right now that are content to be cynical and go out on a big joke rather than something with emotional weight to it. 

Brad Neely: Some people might shy away from earnestness these days, but it’s okay to talk about good stuff, too. Don’t forget that!

Daniel Kurland: The series also teases the Frakes family who run River Creek and their stranglehold over the community. Will they grow into more of a threat as the series continues and the Harpers become more indoctrinated into the community?

Brad Neely: Yeah, the second half of season one shows a lot more of the Frakes. Kelly Frakes is kind of like our Mr. Burns, and her son Johnny is Debbie’s old high school boyfriend who is rich and owns the country club and the mall, but otherwise can’t get his shit together. I really love the Frakes and the series is definitely going to dig in deeper with them.  

Daniel Kurland: What’s been the most satisfying aspect of working on this series and getting to bring it to life?

Brad Neely: It’s been a long time coming and it was certainly difficult during the lockdown. It’s very hard to comment because there’s always a certain level of disassociation when you premiere something that’s been so intense and a part of your life for so long. That being said, I just can’t wait for people to enjoy these actors’ performances. Not just the main cast, but also the secondary cast just nailed it on every level and often under extreme circumstances; oftentimes recording from their closets. I’m just proud of their work and to get to showcase them. Like you had said about Rhea Seehorn, she’s amazing here and I just think the world of her. 

Daniel Kurland: And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask if there’s any chance that Queeblo might show up on the streets of River Creek?

Brad Neely: Not in the show, no. You know, I get a Queeblo question every hour on the hour. I like the guy and—actually, I’m glad that you could shine a spotlight on this. I’m sitting on an album’s worth of Queeblo songs that I’ve already made! I have about ten Queeblo songs and I don’t want to develop him into a TV show because I think that would kill him, but a visual album of ten songs would be really good. So if somebody wants to make that, then let’s talk.

 

‘The Harper House’ premieres on Paramount+ on September 16th with three episodes, with episodes dropping weekly afterwards