To celebrate the DVD release of the DERRICK Comedy film Mystery Team, we have a three day set of features called "Get Triple Teamed by the Mystery Team". Yesterday we posted an exclusive clip from Mystery Team and today’s feature is an interview with the three stars of film and members of Derrick Comedy, Donald Glover, Dominic Dierkes and DC Pierson.
CraveOnline: Where did you all come up with the Mystery Team characters?
Dominic Dierkes: It was basically reverse engineering from the idea of Encyclopedia Brown all grown up, which was an idea Donald brought to the group when we were trying to figure out what movie we were going to do. And then from there we started thinking about the archetypes of characters that existed in those worlds, in that little kid mystery genre in general and that’s where we arrived at… master of disguise, strongest kid in town… and then the boy genius that thinks he is smarter than he actually is.
CraveOnline: What kinds of film ideas did you come up with before deciding to go with the Mystery Team idea?
DC Pierson: We initially sold a pilot to Comedy Central like five years ago before we put any videos online, and that kind of ending up not really going anywhere. So working on a feature film after we started putting videos online and we took it out to L.A. (because we were living in New York at the time) and we pitched it around. Basically the notes that we were getting from people was that it was too small. The studios really only want to do huge budget movies... That was kind of weird because we come from the sketch comedy world, where if it costs less money isn’t that a good thing because then we can do more of what we want to do. So we looked at maybe trying to produce it ourselves because it was relatively low budget and then we realized what a huge amount of work that would be.
CraveOnline: Any plans for a sequel to Mystery Team?
Dominic Dierkes: We very much like the characters still. I guess the short is that we have no immediate plans for a sequel. As far as our interest is concerned, it’s not outside of the realm of possibilities.
CraveOnline: How did the casting for the film fall in to place?
DC Pierson: Paper, scissors, rock.
Dominic Dierkes: It was a lot of comedians and friends from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York. Donald’s colleagues from when he was writing for 30 Rock and we also had a casting director...
DC Pierson: There were some parts that we wrote with people specifically in mind. Most specifically is the part of Jordy, who we were writing for Bobby Moynihan (SNL). We think he’s the best.
CraveOnline: Watching the film now, it’s funny to see actors from the entire NBC Thursday night comedy lineup (and SNL) in the film.
Dominic Dierkes: Yeah, at the time we were casting no one was really on those shows really except for [John] Lutz was doing 30 Rock, but Bobby [Moynihan] got SNL after we shot the movie and Aubrey [Plaza] got Parks and Recreation after so it’s kind of fun retroactively to see that everyone else is recognizing that these people are super talented and awesome.
CraveOnline: Will you be doing more web video for Derrick Comedy or focusing on film and TV?
DC Pierson: We just put up a video on Friday and we’re going to be putting up another one in the next couple of weeks. We definitely want to keep making sketch comedy because that’s where we built our audience and we love it. There are lots of ideas that super weird and fun and funny that’s we’re excited to do but do not lend themselves to being a feature or a Television show or anything like that.
CraveOnline: Is there any chance that we will see Wally Cummings in the near future?
Donald Glover: He’s a drifter; I don’t know where he is right now. I got be honest, he sounds like a schizophrenic.
DC Pierson: Every few days I get a call from some detective that wants to ask me the nature of my relationship with Wally Cummings or some insurance investigator…
Dominic Dierkes: I think Criterion was going to re-release some of his films and when that press release came out people were really shocked by that, and then they came out a day later and said ‘Sorry we really aren’t going to do that at all, this mysterious drifter held us hostage and made us send out that press release, so please disregard.’
Donald Glover: But still a friend.
CraveOnline: How was the transition for you guys from working on the web and TV to producing a feature film?
DC Pierson: Quite daunting and overwhelming. It’s just such a different scale altogether from the web shorts. There were a lot of times where we were not sure weren’t sure we were going to make it but we had to kind of believe that we would get through it if we just kept soldiering forward and chipping away at it bit by bit.
CraveOnline: What’s next for you guys?
Donald Glover: We are doing the shows every Sunday [Shitty Jobs at the UCB theater in Los Angeles] and we’re talking about other movie ideas that we have.
DC Pierson: Wally Cummings keeps sending us what he calls screenplays, but are really just a lot of greasy napkins stapled together right in the center.
Dominic Dierkes: I gave him notes.
DC Pierson: You gave him notes on the greasy napkins?
Dominic Dierkes: He asked for notes I would have felt just [saying], ‘dude this is garbage’.
DC Pierson: It is literally garage.
Dominic Dierkes: Well maybe I am just more sensitive than you are.
CraveOnline: Last thing, can you guys help me with my Gink account?
Donald Glover: Can we be honest? We sold Gink to Kraft, the company, like Kraft cheese. It’s all them now, it’s going to be cheese based things… I’m just riding this money horse.
DC Pierson: He’s not joking; he’s literally riding a horse made of money.
Donald Glover: WHOA!
And on that note… Mystery Team will be available of DVD, On Demand, Digital Download and Video Game Consoles on May 25th.
