By: Jeremy Egner
Scott County Library hardcover 316 pages plus acknowledgements, source notes, and index
Published: 2024
Genre: Non-fiction
I really like the TV show and was curious to know more. This was an interesting read.
Page 82: While writing the first season, the writers had mined their experiences and anxieties to craft ten episodes that, if they were successful and luck enough to get a chance to make more, would serve as the first of a three-season arc Sudeikis had had in mind, in rough form at least, basically from the beginning.
I love that Jason Sudeikis and his friends had talked about this and planned it out but had no idea how it would pan out. I love that it was such an incredible hit. It's especially remarkable that season one was filmed pre-Covid and people "needed" it so much during lockdown.
Page 94: In inviting us to indulge our assumptions about such characters, the show sets us up to be surprised and moved by their complexities and eventual evolutions. Just like you might be with the people you encounter in your actual life, if you set your judgments aside and let yourself be open to the possibility.
Yes, stereotypes and preconceived notions about people can be so limiting! Yet most of us still do that . . . I love how Ted Lasso was a positive, open human with a warmth and unself-consciousness about him.
Page 99: But what Ted Lasso is really about, more than anything else, is personal transformation - or more precisely, the potential we all have, through our choices and actions, to become more humane versions of ourselves at any point in our lives, generally with the help of others. The show wasn't about kindness and decency as much as it was a case for how those qualities can unlock human potential, and in turn proliferate by helping people become more supportive, empathetic, and self-actualized.
For me, that is a great summation of the show's "point." I just know that I really enjoyed watching it (though it has a LOT of F-bombs). This philosophy is not Christian in nature, but it is more positive than a lot of the darkness in the world right now.
Page 115: The bond they form out of that understanding is profound, demonstrating that while it may be true that hurt people hurt people, healing ones can help others heal, too.
I'm glad that the relationship between Ted and Rebecca didn't turn into a romantic one! I went from really disliking her character to understanding her, to seeing her change because of Ted. Their friendship seemed very realistic. And I like the idea of someone who's gone through a difficult time in life helping someone else through a similar struggle.
Page 151: He also shocked and thrilled Ted Lasso fans - and colleagues - when he showed up as Hercules in a post-credits scene in the 2022 Marvel hit Thor: Love and Thunder.
This is referring to Brett Goldstein, who started out as a writer on the show and ended up as character Roy Kent! He was brilliant in that role! When I saw this sentence, I had to find the clip. We've not yet watched Thor: Love and Thunder. Here's more info.
Page 168-9: The truth is, Joe, Brendan, and Jason were all talking about this stuff long before this. This is the response to the toxic and cynical culture out there, especially if you look at social media and what young people have to deal with right now - just political discourse and how they watch people speak to each other.
Brett Goldstein: . . . So it came in a time where it felt revolutionary to see someone being nice. And it shouldn't have. It says more about the world than it says about our show that it felt so, "Wow, look at this person being decent."
Bill Lawrence was one of the co-creators of the show. Brett Goldstein wrote and played Roy Kent. They are completely correct about how awful civil discourse has become . . . . And how bad things were even BEFORE the pandemic started.
Page 178: "We somehow became a hit. You know, it's truly shocking to me, because it's built around two things Americans hate: soccer and kindness."
This is a quote from Jason Sudeikis at an awards show. Reading this book, I was introduced to the fact that he had done two commercials for NBC when they picked up National League soccer and were trying to promote it. I hunted down and watched the commercials, which were the spark for the show, but I don't like them nearly as much as the actual TV show. First. Second.
Page 186: Humans are made to be connected. There's power in human beings being in the same room.
Sudeikis is talking about the challenges of writing season two over Zoom versus in person. What an amazing group of humans worked together on this show! I completely agree that people were created to be in communion with one another!
Page 200: The show's inclusion of pricey legends like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Beyoncé, Queen, Bob Marley, David Bowie, Édith Piaf, Leonard Cohen, A Tribe Called Quest, and Radiohead - as well as the Walt Disney and classic Broadway songbooks - is also a periodic reminder that it is produced by the wealthiest company in the history of humankind.
Apple is indeed a wealthy company. The music is phenomenal and I love how the songs were chosen to assist in the storytelling.
Page 219: When Beard impersonates the Irish former Oxford prof, he introduces himself as Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus. That's the given name of Elvis Costello.
This was in the "Random Stats" at the end of the chapter on "Beard After Hours." The book was arranged like a soccer game: Warm-ups (introduction and first two chapters), First Half (chapters 3-7 and a few "Key Episodes" and a "Key Influences" thrown in), Second Half (chapters 8-11 and more "Keys"), and Stoppage Time (chapter 12). It's quite clever and enjoyable. I loved reading these "factoids."
Page 257: Assholes don't know they're assholes. They think they're the star of their own movie; they think they're doing the right thing. When you have that opportunity to empathize with someone that has a disgusting view of the human experience, you play it with reckless abandon, like Phil did.
Phil is the guy who played Jamie Tartt. He had an amazing character arc! And he played the part very well.
Page 267: Ted Lasso is so widely remembered as the show we needed during the hellscape that was 2020, it's easy to forget that the basic concept was hashed out years before the coronavirus pandemic. Not just the original ad but the broad contours of the series itself, conceived as a corrective to the increasingly sour state of human interaction as embodied by social media platforms like Twitter (and, around the time Jason Sudeikis and Bill Lawrence were pitching it around Hollywood, by a national tone shaped by then President Trump's bellicose rhetoric). The creators were interested in how the mercurial ego drip of social media and, more broadly, the unforgiving light of public attention shape the way we see the world and ourselves in a time when most of us, via the phones in our pockets and all around us every day, are living increasingly public lives whether we like it or not.
I love that they are saying this. I'm still amazed by friends who are Trump supporters. I think he's horrible.
Page 319 (acknowledgements): One of the key tenets of Ted Lasso is that people need people, that it is our relationships that carry us forward to where we're supposed to be. In this regard, I have been truly blessed, with many great friends and colleagues who enrich my life, and family who have given it meaning since before I can remember.
Like the author, I am very thankful to have amazing people in my life. I enjoyed this book!
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