“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” has an instant-classic opening theme song — and it turns out it was the very first joke written for the show.
When we asked show co-creator Robert Carlock to walk us through the tune’s evolution, he offered up the “long version of the answer” — the exact version we wanted. He said the autotune joke was his idea — he thinks — and that the whole thing was “reverse-engineered” from star Ellie Kemper.
“We very much wanted to use the unique thing about her — the combination of strength, sunniness and possibly even naiveté she’s able to communicate as an actress,” he said.
For the show’s plot, Carlock and Tina Fey needed to create a gap in Kimmy’s life — or, as Carlock describes it, an explanation as to how a 30-year-old “doesn’t know anything.” They mulled a coma for a bit, but eventually came up with the bunker story. (Because females, as the song notes, are strong as hell.)
For those who haven’t watched “Kimmy,” the pilot opens with a S.W.A.T. team rescuing Schmidt and her bunker-mates, before the camera pans over to a neighbor’s reaction interview. It quickly becomes a perfectly edited theme inspired by Antoine Dodson’s interview-turned-autotuned masterpiece.
“It’s how these stories of tragedy get manipulated and appropriated and turned into cop shows and into talk show fodder,” Carlock explained. “How the news cycle and the immediacy of information and of opinion can take these stories and use them.”
It certainly didn’t hurt that Fey’s husband, Jeff Richmond, is a composer (and a “genius,” Carlock says). He brought in Songify creators The Gregory Brothers — who autotuned the Dodson interview — while Fey and Carlock got to work on the lyrics.
Carlock and Fey’s wording started out dark, then changed to light, before trending darker again. (Perhaps that’s reflective of the show’s eventual switch from NBC to Netflix.) What Carlock didn’t know was how catchy the whole thing would become.
“A good theme song you don’t fast-forward through usually because it reminds you what the show is,” he said, “and it puts you in that tone, in that place.”
Watch the excellent end product above, and if you aren’t watching “Kimmy,” you should be. Season 2 is now available in its entirety on Netflix.