Airing on Adult Swim, the comedy Three Busy Debras follows the daily lives of three eccentric housewives, all named Debra. Meeting with the three Debra who are also the creators of the series.
AlloCiné: Three Busy Debras is a totally crazy and crazy series, but tell us more!
Sandy Honing: It’s a kind of cartoon but with living characters! I have the impression that we are in the register of Looney Tunes or SpongeBob with, each week, an episode which lasts 11 minutes and not connected to the previous or following episodes. It’s a unique comedy format.
Alyssa Stonoha: I find it refreshing that we are three women who let loose without restraint, totally crazy instead of the male comics to which we are especially accustomed. We are proud to represent all the slightly crazy women around the world!
Mitra Jouhari: They said it all, nothing to add.
What kind of challenges are in front of you every time you tackle a new episode, I imagine it’s not easy to constantly reinvent yourself?
Mitra Jouhari: The real challenge is to be funny while telling a story that holds up in 11 minutes. It’s really complex and not so simple to structure. We try to cover important topics in each episode.
Alyssa Stonoha: Another challenge is to create the environment in which we operate. It’s a universe with many props, many physical gags and it’s not always easy to execute everything perfectly with a limited schedule and budget to shoot and manage to edit only the 10 to 11 minutes that will eventually be on screen. We’re lucky to have a film crew in Seattle that’s well-honed and ready for anything.
Sandy Honing: We do everything in this series: from writing, to producing, to performing. It’s really exhausting. I even directed some episodes this season. We’re really lucky to have so much creative control over this show, it’s quite a unique situation in our business.
Tell us a bit about the genesis of this series?
Mitra Jouhari: It’s really a series that was born from the cogitation and the collaboration in perfect harmony of our senses of humor which are quite explosive and atypical. It dates back to our first meeting in 2015, when we had just landed in New York. We first climbed together on the boards of a café-théâtre and the rest is history as they say. We named all the characters Debra by accident.
Sandy Honing: It’s amusing, at times, to realize that in certain respects these Debra correspond to women who are close to us. But we don’t mean who not to get angry with them.
Adult Swim
Mitra Jouhari: But above all, these Debra suit us. They are exaggerated versions of ourselves. We bring out certain sides of our personality or physique that we don’t like about ourselves. For example, my character is very desperate and it’s a bit like me in real life. It allows me to exorcise that frustration by projecting it onto the screen.
Sandy Honing: I’m the type of girl who wants to control everything, I’m a control freak and that’s what I put in my Debra.
Alyssa Stonoha: As for me, I’m an introvert, so my Debra can seem cold, frigid. I’m not as devoid of feelings as my Debra, but I’m getting a little closer.
Ultimately what are your favorite themes with this series? What are you trying to express with this show?
Sandy Honing: For us it is important to take everything lightly in life. We want people to forget their everyday life with its various greyness.
Mitra Jouhari: That’s exactly right. I remember how we met late at night to write these episodes at a dinner party in New York. How it felt good to let go, to forget the complexity and madness of real life. We really want to give you all the positive energy you need. That’s the purpose of this show. Make people happy, make them laugh, help them turn the page…
Adult Swim
Sandy Honing: Even if we don’t think in terms of messages or themes, it’s hard not to admit that this is a series about friendship between women, privilege and the ridiculousness of life. when we take ourselves too seriously.
Do you have any idea where you’re going with this show?
Mitra Jouhari: Not really, we improvise…
Alyssa Stonoha: I think you will see that at the end of this new season, everything is possible with the Debras and that we are not ready to stop creating other episodes. We are so creative and we love to share with the public all the crazy ideas that come to mind.
Sandy Honing: You have not finished supporting us! We will still invade your screens for a long time. Word of Debra!
Season 2 of Three Busy Debras is available on Adult Swim