Tim Robinson Is Making A New Show And It's Not At Netflix

By Andrew Sanford | TV | April 3, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | TV | April 3, 2024 |

I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson is one of the funniest comedy shows to premiere in the last decade. It’s funny, smart, insane, over-the-top, and driven by comedic performances by some of the funniest people (including Robinson himself). It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s okay. The show is so firmly unique to Robinson and his creative partner, Zack Kanin, that I wouldn’t want it to appeal to everyone, lest it lose what makes it special.

Comedies are often broad. They sometimes have to be. If you’re trying to snare a wide audience, you must make jokes that everyone will get. That isn’t always successful, but it works a lot. Broad comedies have been successful for a long time and will continue to be so for even longer. Still, now and then a show like I Think You Should Leave gets out there and appeals to the right amount of weirdos. It digs its heels into what makes it different. Its lack of broad appeal becomes a strength.

Robinson has worked at Netflix since 2016’s Netflix Presents: The Characters. Since then, he’s made three seasons of I Think You Should Leave and appeared on numerous Netflix originals. It almost seemed a forgone conclusion that if he made a new show, it would land at the streaming giant. Instead, he and Kanin are entering a new venture, at a new home, with the help of Adam McKay.

Robinson and Kanin have been given the green light at HBO for a new show called The Chair Company. The half-hour comedy will be written and executive-produced by the duo. The show will tell the story of a man (played by Robinson) investigating a far-reaching conspiracy after an embarrassing incident at work. While few other details are available, it does sound like a departure from the format of I Think You Should Leave.

The story still sounds like the same brand of Robinson/Kanin weirdness. HBO likely didn’t hire them, nor did McKay jump on board as an Executive Producer, to water down the voices of this creative pair. If anything, we may get to see their brand of comedy on a larger scale with a bigger budget. That said, David Zaslav could suddenly decide to pull the plug and the show could never see the light of day. That’s the reputation Warner Brothers Discover has now. We’ll just have to hope that doesn’t happen.