#workplace-comedy

#workplace-comedy

Dispatch, an interactive superhero workplace comedy from Adhoc Studios, is an ambitious project. The story has to balance comedy and personal drama, the animation needs polish worthy of a high-budget TV series, and the cast must be strong enough to support the lofty vision. When creative director Nick Herman and director Dennis Lenart were looking for a lead, one actor stood out above all the others: Aaron Paul, star of Breaking Bad and Bojack Horseman. There was just one problem.

Ron is genuinely beset by absurdity, misfortune and other people's idiocy and selfishness, but always manages to react in a way that makes everyone around him conclude that he is the problem. Whereas Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm met the world's small annoyances in a rational but insensitive manner, Ron combats them irrationally and too sensitively. The opening scene sets the tone:

Set at the Dunder Mifflin paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, it was very much in the spirit of the original, at least initially: a deadpan mockumentary centred on a megalomaniac manager (Steve Carrell's Michael Scott), who like Ricky Gervais's David Brent before him was a friend first, and a boss second and probably an entertainer third. The Office: An American Workplace ran for nine seasons, setting aside some of the original's cringe comedy aspects in favour of something with a little more heart.

Derricks, producer Dhana Gilbert, production designer Bill Groom, and Sherman-Palladino took IndieWire inside the process of restaging the classics and creating Tobias' cutting-edge originals.