At the time, this seemed like Hollywood whimsy.
For an episode that airs Thursday, “Superstore” shot a blizzard in Los Angeles. “People were bringing their kids to … see snow for the first time,” said Colton Dunn, who plays Garrett.
It seemed especially odd, because the show is set in St. Louis, which barely averages 15 inches of snow a year.
And then? In January – after that episode was shot – a storm hit. St. Louis had 8-12 inches; parts of Missouri had 20.
At least, the pretend one was fun. “It was so cool,” said Ben Feldman, who plays Jonah.
“It was an amazing couple of days,” Dunn said. “We all got to bundle up and wear coats when it was 70 degrees out.”
Then came that real storm; that happen a lot, said Lauren Ash, who plays Dina. “Stuff will happen on the show and then it will happen in real life.”
Or something real is copied on the show. Dunn once got a coupon-filled receipt, bigger than the thing he bought; that was soon on “Superstore.”
Real-life personalities also sneak in. Scripts “just read more and more like 30-page roasts of me,” Feldman said.
He grew up in Potomac, Maryland, listed as America’s richest town. So Jonah is mocked for his upper-class references.
Also reflecting real life is America Ferrera, who spent four sunny years as the “Ugly Betty” star. “That was fun and so exhausting,” she said.
Now she plays Amy, often the opposite. “Amy has definitely brought the cynic out in me.”
Other characters have also adjusted. Mateo was “a straight Latino guy,” Nico Santos said, then was adapted. “I never thought in a million years I’d be (in a show that) celebrated the fullness of my identity of being queer and Asian.”
— “Superstore,” 8 p.m. Thursdays, NBC
— The blizzard episode airs March 21, the first full day of spring