Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

The new comedy series The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins stars Tracy Morgan as a disgraced former football star and Daniel Radcliffe as a documentary filmmaker who team up to make a movie. I know what you’re saying - another mockumentary sitcom? What if I told you that the creators come from shows like 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Girls5eva? And that the joke density bears that out? The NBC/Peacock series also stars Erika Alexander, Bobby Moynihan and Craig Robinson.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhourSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The new comedy series The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins stars Tracy Morgan as a disgraced former football star and Daniel Radcliffe as a documentary filmmaker who team up to make a movie. The twist, Radcliffe's filmmaker has also been publicly shamed, and the documentary you will watch getting made is his attempt to put the past behind him. I know what you're saying. Another mockumentary sitcom. Well, what if I told you that the co-creators and show-iners come from shows like 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Girls 5 Eva? and that the joke density kind of bears that out. I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about the fall and rise of Reggie Dinkins on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast, Gene Demby. Welcome back, Gene.

What's good with you, Glenn? It's so good to see you. And with this is culture writer Margaret H. Willison. Also great to be seen. Hey, Margaret. Such a joy to be here, Glenn. I'm glad you're here. In the fall and rise of Reggie Dinkins, Tracy Morgan is Reggie Dinkins, former New York Jet, who was banned from the NFL for gambling.

Daniel Radcliffe is Arthur Tobin, an Oscar-winning documentarian whose implosion on a major film set went viral, destroying his career. The two men need each other, so Arthur embeds himself in Reggie's palatial mansion to make a documentary about him. Reggie's high-strung ex-wife is still his manager, she's played by Erica Alexander. Reggie's former teammate Rusty lives in his basement. He's played by the great and good. Bobby Moynihan.

Robert Carlock is one of the showrunners. he was the show owner on 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt. Sam Means is the other. He wrote on 30 Rock, Kimmy Schmidt, and Girls 5Eva. The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dickens airs on NBC and streams the next day on Peacock because that's the new normal. Margaret, what do you think?

I loved this show so much. The only thing that slowed me down when I was watching it is that I did have to keep stopping and, like, looping other people into it. I'm a car lockhead, a carlochian. I'm locked in for Carlock. So, you know, I had a job. good feeling. I was optimistic. You tell me

Girls Viva. I'm like, obviously, I'm going to watch all of that. That's my new personality. You tell me a football player, I'm like, well, I'll give it an episode. Or 10, in this case, because I certainly watched the whole season. I've watched a few episodes multiple times. And two things here, I feel

are exceptional. One, there is the car lock, joke density, and joke success. And the other thing that really, really, really delights me about this show is Daniel Radcliffe. I've known that he had something like this in him for a long time because he's from the Carrie Fisher School of using F.U. Money and cultural cachet from one big franchise to sort of make whatever career you want for yourself. He's done an incredible job. He's done so many cool projects. He's demonstrated that he's a very good comedy guy. But him and his commitment to a bit combined with the kind of bits of Robert Carlock-led writing team can come up. with is just delicious.

Interviews are like jazz. You have to improvise. Feel it out. Like, scat-a-p-p-p-pah-wow. Oh. There are some things that can't be clipped because they are physical, but his skill in delivering this material and the quality of the material. We know that he is a documentary professor.

He teaches documentary filmmaking at the University of Maryland. But what we don't know until he needs to send his posters back to his office is that he works at. You can mail my posters back to me at the University of Maryland Center for documentary, anime and pornography. That's a great joke.

I'm dying. I'm weeping. I'm texting it to my friends. Congratulations. You have a great new show ahead of you. There we go. Okay. That's Margaret.

Gene, you are the closest this show is ever going to come to a sports guy. I mean... Steven, too. I mean, Stephen Thompson, sure. But you are a football guy. What'd you make of this?

So, real quick, do you think Daniel Radcliffe was doing his own stunts? That was one of the notes that I'm in. I believe it of him. He jumps over a car at one point. I was like, wait, did he jump over the car for real? Again, I'd believe it.

So I thought the show was a good hang. I don't think I was as high on it as you are, Margaret. But I really dug it. I mean, like, it's one of those sorts. You both have commented on how joke dense it is. And every episode at one point, I like cackled out loud as something. Like, I just laughed really, really hard. I was finishing up the last couple episodes last night.

My wife had gone to bed and I was like, oh, that was really loud. Yeah. There was also like these sort of stretches like, oh, this is Vaughn. Like, nothing sort of stuck to me. Although, like, I have a lot of love for the cast. Like, I love Erica Alexander so much, so much. She's like one of those people's like, why didn't she in more stuff? There's that weird.

Like, Tracy Morgan has this very strange way of reading lines that, like, it's one of those things like, I think we like are used to it now. But it's still like, it's just so, like, weirdly, like, disconcerted sometimes. Like, it's so funny, right? It's like, it's funny because, like, if someone else said this, this would not work because. It's like the way that words come out of his mouth that makes these things work. I devoted my whole life to entertaining you people. Are you not entertained? Gladiator.

Nice. The only thing this country loves more than a hero is tear one down. Mm-hmm. Tiger Woods, y'all. Because it is like a very joke then show, and it felt like sometimes there were these, I love a good, stupid digression. I love that kind of stuff. But it also felt like the way the season ends that nothing really kind of happens.

Like, you know? And so, oh, no, we got to do this all again. And, like, we got to get the game back all together. And I was like, I didn't mind hanging out with these people. But it didn't feel like there was, like, it was making a compelling argument for like, dun, dun, done. Like, let's come back for this, like, crew of very, like, you know, zany people, like in their, you know, shenanigans next season. Although, like, you know, again, like, they all get moments to shine. Like, Bobby Moynihan is one of those people who just sort of like, he's like, like, flips around the edges and makes things better.

You know what I'm saying? I just, I don't know. Like, I liked so much of the show. And I felt like a good hang, but it didn't. really like stick to my ribs, you know what I'm saying? I get that, I get that. I'm very curious about how you felt. Well, I mean, like this show could have been, from the premise, you think the overarching thing is that's somebody going to be trying to rest control of the documentary that's being made about them.

We're getting a lot of documentaries now where the subject is the executive producer. And if it was about an overarching struggle, I think that might be a little less Carlockian. Because, again, this is a joke engine this show, as opposed to an arc, right? And also, let's be real. Like, if we're going to still be doing sitcom mockumentaries in the year 2026, we should stop with the office parks and rec formula of pretending that the crew doesn't exist. And the fact that we're making the show explicitly about the interaction between the crew and the subject, I feel like that's overdue.

I'm here for it. We pull us off, people are going to see me in a whole new light like they did at the Ferrell's movie. Did you know he grew up Lego? We've all mentioned Tracy Morgan. He is such a singular comic presence. Every comic has a Tracy Morgan because you can. Because, again, his line delivery, his whole affect is so weird. He doesn't read his lines.

He declaims them. And here's the thing that me, as a comedy nerd, what fascinates me is that he will often take a breath in the middle of a punchline, which shouldn't work. Comedy is all about timing, right? It depends on rhythm. And yet he breaks that fundamental comedy rule. And what you end up with, he comes off as somebody in just about every rolly place. He's somebody who comes off as clueless but not stupid. And I can't define what that distinction is for you.

If you ask me to, I will just point at Tracy Morgan because that's what I think he's doing. A thousand percent. And Daniel Redco can do comedy. You guys should check out a show, Miracle Workers, if you haven't. He's so good on that show. He's been doing this kind of comedy. This is the kind of comedy he's made for, which is kind of high status guy brought low. But I'm going to take a little bit of exception with some of the things you said.

I do think this show is a joke engine. I also think it's deliberately pitched to be a bit more grounded, a bit lower key than thoroughly goofy shows like 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt. Now, every show in the history of existence is less goofy and lower key than 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt. Right. Because those are joke engines first and character comedy second. They're cutting the joke density a bit with baking powder. I don't know what you cut things with.

But if Kimmy Schmidt is Greek yogurt, this is regular yogurt. And I wasn't buying that in the beginning because pilot problems, right? There is clearly an attempt to give everybody a bit. Monica, the ex-wife, is uptight. Brena, the fiancé, played by Precious Way, is an influencer. Who's great? Where do they find this person? She's great.

But that's the extent of her character at first. But as a season progresses, I vibed with it. I got into the characters because they do the smart thing that sitcoms need to do with characters is pair them off in different combinations. So they can kind of bounce off each other. Yeah, you think it's going to be about resting control of this doc, but that would be a little too much conflict, I think, and a little too, I think there'd be an edge that this show is interested in.

This show plays to the heart more than that. It's not just the fake documentary thing that it's sort of biting from Abbott Elementary. I feel like it's also aiming for that type of heartwarmingness. And I think it's getting more like a heart-tepidness. Like, I'm rooting for all these characters. I like them. but like the emotional moments aren't what I'm there for. But maybe that could change with time.

Like I like all of them and I do like that they're just like solidly decent people across the board. You know, nobody is craven. You know, and that's especially in the later seasons of 30 Rock. Craig Robertson's character, his nemesis is cartoonishly evil. Oh, sure. That's fun. Craig Robinson plays like a malevolent Michael Strayhan figure. It's true.

It's true. Even though it's less joke dense, these jokes, Jane, I feel exactly the same way you do. three or four times an episode for me, you get these precious, diamond-hard gems, these jokes that I couldn't imagine it's taken this long in human civilization to come up with

because they feel like they've always been there, they've just been discovered. So the jokes are one thing, the other thing that brought me back every time. Even when I, you know, we were getting some faky, emotional scenes that weren't really doing it for me, then Bobby Moynihan's Rusty would show up.

Now, Reggie lets me live in his basement. You know, best friend stuff. I was around all of his social media. We went viral last week because I had a rash on my neck and a bunch of nurses reached out. And I think he is where I keyed in the most because he strikes me as kind of the vestigial

tale of 30 Rock. Because, you know, he's giving you so much more than what's on the page. He is written pathetic and sad and one hand's delivering that. But he's just too insanely funny and charismatic. So, I mean, I think in the early going some of the actors are hitting their marks

delivering these lines, and these are very quick scripts. And so you have to kind of, you want to hit your marks and deliver the lines. But Moynihan is just in his element here. I want to pelt that guy with Emmys. I think this guy is doing exactly what you need to do in this situation. I think about Bobby Moynihan as this dude who's always done that thing. The very, very funny Tom Hanksket from S.N.O. David S. Pumpkins.

Yeah, the very funny David S. Pumpkin sketch. Glenn just made a face. This is a ridiculous sketch. Yes. And so much of that sketch works because Bobby Mornahan is just making stupid faces in the background and just like, like, it's just very weird and like... You think that works because of Tom Hanks,

but it works because of Bobby Morni Hand. Because of Bobby Morn Hand. Because like Bobby Morn Hand, literally on the edges of the screen. And like one of the things, like just to go back to Tracy Morgan again is like, I just remember when he first popped up, like he was,

you know, he's been around for a minute. But like, even way back in the day on Martin, like he played Hustleman, his job was to come in and say completely outlandish stuff. And it was hilarious. And it's weird to see how like that's evolved as he's gotten older. Because at first, like, when he first got to SNL, was like, is he in on the, like, it feels like it almost felt like sometimes like he maybe was being laughed at and maybe wasn't in on the joke that he's being laughed at.

And now it's very clear that he like has like sort of like complete control of this thing that he's doing, this sort of very off-pilter thing that he's doing that we're like very used to. And so even in the early parts of 30, Rock, it's like, is he the butt of the joke here? And does he know that he's the butt of the joke? It was like very, this sort of uncomfortable place where he's living. And that is not, he's evolved to the point where it seems like that tend to. is a place that he's very comfortable. Like, to your point, Glenn, he's clueless but not dumb, you know? Yeah.

It's a very hard place to live, you know? I would clip a joke here, which is Arthur Estoban asking him, does he know what documentary means? Reddy, you know what the word documentary means, right? Well, I assume it's from the Latin word, documentum, meaning lesson or instruction. I took Latin in college because I thought it would help me meet Dominican chicks. But then I liked it. Yeah, that was so funny.

That's a great line. This is one of those jokes. That's one of those diamond hard jokes. Like, my ass and anybody make that joke. It is very special to be able to deliver all parts of that joke and have every bit of it feel equally plausible. Like, yes, you would think Latin would help you pick up Dominican chicks, but you would come to love it because you've genuine intellectual curiosity.

And, you know, 40 years later, you'd still remember it. Yeah, I mean, him knowing Latin is a runner. Turns out to be a runner that comes up in the show. But he's called upon to do something. He hasn't really been called upon to do in, like 30 Rock. I mean, like, he has to act. He has to be in a scene with another actor. And so the chemistry between Morgan and Radcliffe, that's what the show is built around. I'll be honest, they didn't always feel it. They're coming from two very different places comedically and

theatrically, I guess, which is the hook. But I sometimes feel like when they're not firing off jokes and they just both need to be present in a scene together, I don't know if I always felt it. Was it there for you? No, I think that's true. I would agree. I think it wasn't a distraction for me. But when I compare his dynamic with Arthur S. Tobin to his dynamic with the other actors on the show, like he's got such a natural way with Brena, precious way, the dynamic with him and Erica Alexander is so good and well established. But there, yeah, there's a little bit less connection. Yeah, but that's the point, right? I can't fault it. Sure. Yeah. I just hope Robert Carlock's bid here for sort of like broadly network appealing show that's still,

has jokes for me and Glenn and Gene in it. I really wish it's success because I would love to see this continue. And also because so much of the show is based on what's happened in the past, we do get cutaways to the past and we do, there is a wig budget, thank God. And there is a pretty solid wig budget in this show and there's stupid visual jokes, but they always get me. I'm a simple man and they always get me. I think it is very impressive that all three of us agree. We laughed aloud at this show while watching it alone.

That's true. Absolutely. Well, we want to know what you think about the fallen rise of Reggie Dinkins. You heard us. We're on board. Find us at Facebook.com slash PCHH. That brings it to the end of our show. Margaret H. Willis and Jean Debbie.

Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Glenn. Appreciate you. Of course. And just a reminder that's signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show in public radio. And you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor free. So please find out more at plus. npr.org slash happy hour

or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Mike Katzif and edited by our sure runner Jessica Reedy and Helo Kamin provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon and we'll see you all next time.