Sam Richardson and Tim Robinson bring their real life friendship and sharpened comedic skills together and invite us to experience a sillier side of Detroit.
Detroiters initially debuted on Comedy Central back in 2017, and had been shelved in the depths of Paramount+ until last October when Netflix picked it up. I didn’t know Netflix had picked it up, but I suspected so when I started seeing the explosion of memes and clips from the show across social media. All my feeds were clips of the main characters, Tim and Sam, just doing random weird stuff, like screaming, dancing, throwing objects, and making offhand comments to unsuspecting strangers. Something about it was so hilarious and appealing to my appreciation of absurd, slapstick humor that I had to binge this show and I’m glad I did.
What is Detroiters about?
Detroiters is a silly and unserious buddy sitcom about two childhood best friends, Sam Duvet and Tim Cramblin, who try to make it big in the advertising scene. When they aren’t goofing off or going on ridiculous side quests in the city, they’re pitching and producing hilarious low-budget commercials for local businesses.
Detroiters Cast and Characters
Sam Richardson & Tim Robinson – Sam Duvet and Tim Cramblin
Sam Richardson and Tim Robinson star as Sam Duvet and Tim Cramblin, childhood best friends and producers for Tim’s inherited family advertising agency, Cramblin Advertising. Sam and Tim are awkward and lovable in their own ways, and their goofy personalities complement each other in a heartwarming and silly friendship.
Richardson starred in Emmy award winning roles in Ted Lasso and Veep, and has a prolific voice acting career, including characters in Velma, The Fungies, and Housebroken.
Robinson created and starred in his Emmy award winning show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, and recently co-starred with Paul Rudd in Friendship.
Lailani Ledesma – Lea
Lailani Ledesma plays Lea, an intern at Cramblin Advertising who keeps the real work going while her bosses go on their misadventures. Ledesma appeared in Ovid and the Art of Love. Ledesma landed her role in Detroiters after a producer she served at the Antietam restaurant asked her to audition.
Pat Vern Harris – Sheila Portnadi
The late Pat Vern Harris plays Sheila Portnadi, the long time secretary at Cramblin Advertising who has retained the personality and gusto of her 20s. Harris appeared in various TV series including Night Sky, Shameless, and Sirens.
Andre Belue – Tommy Pencils
Andre Belue plays Tommy Pencils, a lovably strange production assistant at Sam and Tim’s advertising agency. Belue appeared in I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, and has a modeling career.
Shawntay Dalon – Chrissy Duvet
Shawntay Dalon plays Chrissy Duvet, Sam’s playfully combative sister and Tim’s adoring wife. Dalon recently starred in and received numerous awards for her role in Finding Nicole, and appeared in I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, Booked, and Crust.
The Creators of Detroiters and the Story Behind the Show
Sam Richardson and Tim Robinson are IRL best friends with their history going way back to the start of their improv careers. Both Richardson and Robinson were born in and raised around Detroit. Robinson was a comedy nerd whose high school teacher told him about Second City, a improv comedy troupe, which he joined and was mentored by the legendary Keegan-Michael Key. Richardson found out about Second City through a friend in high school and participated in an improv jam, which made him instantly fall in love with the art of comedy and acting. Robinson ended up mentoring Richardson and the two sparked their friendship. As their individual careers blossomed, Robinson went on to perform and write for SNL, while Richardson starred in Veep. They made time in between their busy lives to create and write Detroiters with SNL writers Zach Kanin and Joe Kelly, and the support of executive producers Lorne Michaels and SNL star Jason Sudeikis.
The idea for Detroiters was inspired by the eccentric local commercials from the duo’s childhood as Robinson explains (via BUILD):
The idea came for us from the local commercials we grew up watching… some of these things are completely insane… the lighting’s pretty bad and it’s louder than all the other commercials, who makes these things?
Richardson added:
The commercials are so confident, but they’re so like insane, like somebody’s proud of this.
On Conan, Richardson shared his favorite local TV ad by Dittrich Furs, featuring a lady wearing the company’s fur coat product and riding a horse through the snow while two beautiful male and female voices serenade the listener. Robinson shared his favorite commercials with The A.V. Club, and highly ranked one from Little Caesars, in which the shopkeeper speedily folds up a pizza box into a cardboard pterodactyl while maintaining an overly joyful smile. Although these commercials predate their careers, they seem like they could have been written by Richardson and Robinson themselves. In the context of their past work, it’s easy to see how these commercials inspired their unique comedic styles and inclination towards absurd humor. In Detroiters, they go on to parody some of the iconic local commercials such as “Hunky Specs” from Season 1 Episode 2, a parody of D.O.C. Sexy Specs, and “Quick Rick Mahorn in Dearborn” from Season 1 Episode 10, parodying Mel Farr Superstar.
Detroiters was motivated to show Detroit in a new light rather than feeding into the overused negative stereotypes as Richardson explains (via BUILD):
We’re always fighting off [negative jokes] like this car looks broke down it might as well be Detroit! I’m like all right that’s easy, you know, but that’s not really, that’s not the real Detroit entirely, it’s not only just despair…
Richardson and Robinson wanted to keep Detroiters authentic by filming on location and showing the real city, its culture, and people. They cast local talent, including their guest stars such as Rick Mahorn of the Detroit Pistons. They even got Mort Crim, Detroit Channel 4’s trusted news anchor from the 80s/90s and the inspiration for Ron Burgundy (played by Will Ferrell) from Anchorman, who played himself and delivered parody news reports in the show.
Although classified as a sitcom, the narrative structure of Detroiters is more like a hybrid mixed with sketch comedy, as Robinson explains (via BUILD):
“The goal is for the two guys to kind of bring the agency to another level, that’s continuous, but the episodes are kind of modular and go off on tangents.”
Each episode has its own subplot that wraps up nicely and positively by the end. The modularity of the episodes allows viewers to watch them out of order without worrying about spoilers or continuity. Despite Tim and Sam’s best efforts to ascend Cramblin Advertising to Commercial Olympus, they usually end up right back where they started and begin a new hilarious adventure the next day. It reminds me of the format of 2000s cartoons, like Ed Edd n Eddy and Spongebob Squarepants, which had episode-specific subplots without any particular forward movement in the overarching story. This allowed viewers to tune in whenever they found time to watch TV and fully enjoy 10-15 minute stories with only a basic understanding of the recurring characters. This type of narrative structure is advantageous in the modern entertainment scene, which is dominated by short clips being widely shared across social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. You could be scrolling through these apps, come across a Detroiters clip, and still laugh without watching the show because the sketch comedy is contained enough to get the jokes across without additional context.
The Feelgood Bromance of Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson in Detroiters
Click through any episode from Detroiters, and 9 out of 10 times you’ll pause on frame with Tim and Sam, side by side, smiling, laughing, and riffing. Detroiters does a great job maximizing their screen time and letting Robinson and Richardson’s real life chemistry flow out of the screen. I think they named the characters after themselves because their friendship is so tight it would feel weird to refer to each other by any other name. Putting aside the absurdity, ridiculousness, cringe, and sometimes sheer stupidity of the situations these two land themselves in, Tim and Sam’s buddy dynamic has a lot of heart and makes the show simply fun to watch.
Detroiters is personally comforting to me because it reminds me a lot of my best friend. We met in middle school and just clicked. We weren’t in the same homeroom so every period was the most excruciating wait until recess and lunch. We took art as an elective our last year and it was the best hour of my school day, sitting by his side, peacefully drawing, and sharing earbuds to listen to dubstep remixes of our favorite videogame soundtracks from the phone he snuck into class. For every joke I set up, he found the punchline. For every game trailer, we’d speculate theories for hours. We could talk about anything. We didn’t need to be doing something, just his company was enough for me. Every play date ended with us in court with our moms, pleading for just 5 more minutes to spend with my best friend.
When we’d fight it never lasted long. I remember he punched me in the face once at lunch for messing up his save file for a strategy game on his phone. I still laugh thinking about it because I was an ass (sorry bro :P), but also because despite what happened, I came back to school the next day excited to see him again.
To be honest, I dreaded going to school. Not because of classes, grades, and exams but because of the social anxiety. Looking back, the stress from the academic challenges was minuscule compared to the difficulty of fitting in. Life was filled with awkwardness, teasing, fumbles, regret, insecurity, paranoia, shame, and all those cringe moments that flashbang my mind, making me want to shut myself inside a closet and momentarily disappear from the world’s judgement. But I’m glad I woke up every morning and showed up because I got to see my best friend. Being with my best friend made all those negative feelings go away. Though we’re connected online, we haven’t lived in the same city for years now and I miss him every day.
Watching Tim and Sam in Detroiters simply makes me feel warm. They play off each others’ jokes, engage in each others’ interests, and never hold grudges. They’re so close, Tim married Sam’s sister and they’re neighbors. They remind me how good it feels to riff with my buddy and how lucky I am to have him in my life.
What happened to Detroiters? Reviews, Reception, and Cancellation
Detroiters debuted with a strong first season in February 2017, with a viewership average of 500,000 per episode on Comedy Central. Season 1 scored 90% from critics and 82% from the audience on Rotten Tomatoes, and averaged 7.84/10 across its first 10 episodes on IMDB. Overall reactions pointed towards the show’s strength being the brilliantly stupid comedy bolstered by Tim and Sam’s on-screen chemistry. In June 2018, Season 2 snowballed the show’s praises into a 100% critic and 90% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and an average of 7.91/10 on IMDB across the next 10 episodes.
Despite the recognized improvement in writing and performances in Season 2, viewership had fallen 29% to 354,000 viewers on average per episode. Comedy Central ended up cancelling the show soon afterwards in December 2018 on the basis of insufficient ratings. Robinson told IndieWire that before the cancellation, he had a feeling it was over when Comedy Central acted vague about renewing a third season. Richardson pointed out that the cancellation felt unjust and unearned as decline in viewership was more likely due to Comedy Central’s marketing decision to release it in the summer without adequate marketing. Richardson elaborated that there were additional barriers to public visibility, especially with the paywall to watch the show on Comedy Central’s app.
Comedy Central should’ve hired Cramblin-Duvet to handle the Detroiters marketing. If they had a grieving widow spread her late spouse’s ashes over a lake and take the fish that eats them home, viewers would’ve tuned into Season 2 in masses!
Where is Detroiters Now?
After its cancellation in 2018, Detroiters was available to stream on Paramount+. Fans got exciting news when Netflix, the King of Showing You a Great Show That Was Booted by its Original Distributor, announced Detroiters was coming to its platform October 2024. Since then, the show’s popularity has skyrocketed online with old fans greeting new fans and spreading memes together. Seems like Detroiters is getting the same Netflix treatment as Loudermilk. There’s no news for a season 3 yet, but Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson continue to bring laughs to the world in their new projects and blooming comedy careers.
