The INSIDER Summary:
- Each episode of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" contains a large amount of jokes.
- It's easy to miss some of them on a first or second watch.
- Actors Ellie Kemper and Tituss Burgess tell INSIDER it's easy for jokes to go over their heads, too.
- Kemper says she's even had to Google a reference.
A typical episode of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" can be filled with tons of jokes and pop culture references that come at you so fast that you need to rewind and watch at least once just to catch them all.
If you feel like it's tough to keep up with the many jokes on the Netflix comedy, you're not alone.
"I don't know three quarters of the time what they're talking about," Ellie Kemper said in reference to the lead characters when she and costar Tituss Burgess recently sat down with INSIDER to preview the show's third season. "Once I Googled a reference. The references are so multi-layered and deep."
Sometimes, the jokes involve actively paying attention to every snippet of dialogue. In season three, episode two, Titus asks his boyfriend Mikey why he was wearing his "date-night" shirt while out with another guy.
He calls it the sweater he put on him in episode 204 of their relationship, a reference to season two, episode four of the series.
Early in season three episode 12, Titus tells Kimmy that Jacqueline gets a "hottie with a body," trademarked by himself in 1994. Jacqueline later refers to it in the same episode though she was nowhere around to hear Titus say it.
"I thought you turning into a 'hottie with a body,' trademark Titus, was my reward for everything I did while you were in the hospital, but it's your reward," Jacqueline says.
And then you need to pay close attention to the background for even more jokes and recurring gags.
Early in the season, Titus jokes that he had to resort to cannibalism on a cruise he took for a production of "Mahogany" with Dionne Warwick. As Redditor chocpocket pointed out, when the playbill for the show comes on screen, take a look at the text. It reads: "Carnivore Cruise Lines Loudly Presents."
Or in season three, episode two, take a look at the admissions table while Kimmy's looking for colleges and it simply says, "Admissions Stuff."
"I read the scripts two or three times, no joke," added Burgess. "They're so smart [the writers] that it's almost annoying. I go to work sometimes and I feel like I'm catching up because the amount of improvisation that they house."
"I don't know if I feel pressure to keep up with it [pop culture references]. I sort of feel pressure to try to understand it," he said.
Season three of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" is currently streaming on Netflix.
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