Development

Director Alexander Buono stated the whole idea for the episode was John Mulaney's, stating the episode was "this pure, distilled form of Mulaney", adding he wrote most of the material and brought in Seth Meyers to help write some of the songs. The director also stated that the Pennebakers had their complete support on this project often communicating with them via email.^[1] In an interview with Vulture, Mulaney stated the basis for the show was behind his experience with his Broadway show Oh, Hello with Nick Kroll. “I was like, ‘What is ’70s New York to me? I had spent a decade living in the 1970s New York doing Oh, Hello, so I thought, Oh, a co-op.”^[2] The documentary is a musical based on vignettes within a fictional cooperative apartment building in New York City during the 1970s. The title of the musical is Co-op, but the reviewers keep calling it “coop” — a running gag that was cut from the episode for time, but which Mulaney wanted to explain by noting that the theater-owning Shubert Organization did not have the money to pay for a hyphen for the sign. The episode was based on the documentary films Original Cast Album: Company (1970) and Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened (2016).

Writing

Mulaney and Meyers, along with composer Eli Bolin, came up with lyrics using the melody and meter of other songs, mostly using Stephen Sondheim tunes as a basis. However, this wasn't always the case. For instance, the first song in the musical, “Co-op,” pulled from Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s “Skid Row,” the opening to Little Shop of Horrors. Other inspirations were more obscure. “I Gotta Go,” the showcase number of Paula Pell’s Elaine Stritch–esque character, which references Company’s “Ladies Who Lunch,” also pulls from Craig Carnelia’s “Just a Housewife” from the 1974 musical Working. Co-op’s finale, “Going Up,” grew out of the unlikely combination of the rhythms of Sweeney Todd’s “A Little Priest” for the verse, and “Something Just Broke” from Assassins for the chorus.^[2] The song “Holiday Party (I Did a Little Cocaine Tonight),” written by Meyers, directly recalls the breakneck pace of Company’s “Getting Married Today,” substituting a woman’s wedding-day jitters for indulging drugs at a holiday party. In the Vulture article Bolin stressed, however, that his work differs from Sondheim’s simply because it’s not as complex as that of the musical-theater master. “A couple people listened to it while we were working on it and were like, ‘Is this legal?’” Bolin said. “We were able to explain how Sondheim’s 'Getting Married Today' is actually a lot more complicated, and my version is actually a lot more simple and less dissonant.”^[2]

Casting

Mulaney and James Urbaniak portray Simon Sawyer and Howard Pine, fictional characters based on Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince. The episode also features a variety of actors known either for their work in musical theatre and comedy. Richard Kind, who appeared in Sondheim's failed musical Road Show, appears here as an actor with difficulty with his lines. Paula Pell portrays a character similar to Elaine Stritch from the Original Cast Album: Company documentary. Also cast were Hamilton’s Renée Elise Goldsberry and School of Rock’s Alex Brightman.^[3] Comedian Taran Killam also appears as a recording technician.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for the Season 3 episode was made available as an actual cast album in 2019 (profits for the album were donated to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS).^[4]

Viewers

The episode aired on February 27, 2019 on IFC and earned a 0.103 Nielsen rating with 103,000 viewers.^[5]

Home media

Documentary Now! season three is available for streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, not as a physical release. The episode is included as bonus content on the Criterion Collection 2021 release of Original Cast Album: Company (1970) on DVD and Blu-ray.^[6]

Critical reception

Season three itself received a 100% from Rotten Tomatoes based on the 23 reviews from critics. The consensus reads, "Incisively critical of the genre and equally delighted by its subjects, Documentary Now! nails mockumentary under the deft direction of Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono."^[7]

The episode received widespread critical acclaim for its wit and pure invention. Esquire magazine raved writing, "Original Cast Recording: Co-op" may be the best episode of the faux-documentary TV series yet".^[8] NPR praised the episode for its attention to detail, "There's also fine attention to detail, period and otherwise: the haircuts, the clothes, it's all very '70s. And the intense way that theatrical performers look when they're cutting a record — enunciating perfectly while staring wide-eyed, conducting with one hand, or putting a finger to an ear — is familiar to anyone who's ever seen a recording session documented."^[9]

Awards and nominations