Bob Odenkirk might be returning to our screens later this month for the final season of Better Call Saul but before he does, the beloved performer is teaming up with his writer-actor son, Nate Odenkirk, for their new Audible Original Summer in Argyle, a murder mystery scripted podcast set in the fictional small town of Ohio in 2013 during a hot dog eating contest. Following the untimely death of a high schooler amid the annual event, Summer in Argyle is brimming with razor-sharp writing and high-caliber soundscapes thanks to a “dream cast,” including Bob’s Mr. Show co-creator David Cross, as well as comedians Paul F. Tompkins, Tim Robinson and Brian Posehn.
Transporting listeners through a zany 10-episode tale narrated by Bob as town narrator Jeremy Zax, Summer in Argyle evokes a listening experience unlike any other and a project the father-son duo was excited to work on together. In an exclusive with PopCulture.com, Bob admits writing the series with his son was “really a joy” to collaborate on and one he looks back at fondly during their time amid the pandemic. “Summer in Argyle is pretty crazy and unhinged… and that allows a lot of freedom when you know that you don’t have a network executive sitting there going, ‘Wait a second, I’ve never heard of that!’ or, ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ which a lot of comedy doesn’t make sense. That’s why it’s comedy. But we just had such total freedom,” Bob said.
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Adding how writing with his son Nate and teaming up with his fellow comedy buddies like Cross and Tompkins was the most fun, Bob says a lot of it reminded him of his time on HBO’s Mr. Show, his absurdist sketch comedy series, which ran from 1995 to 1999. “The only thing the network executive said to us was, ‘Do us a favor. Make sure it doesn’t look like anything you could see on regular TV,’ and that was like the greatest ask ever,” he said. “Then with Tim and Eric, Mike Laszlo at Adult Swim was an amazing executive who also encouraged them to just do their craziest stuff. I mean, you almost couldn’t be crazy enough.”
Bob’s son and co-writer Nate — who has most notably contributed to the satirist news site The Onion — admits he didn’t feel pressure when working with his talented dad. “I felt comfortable coming to him with bad ideas. I feel comfortable coming to my editor with bad ideas as well. So it wasn’t so much, is this idea good or is it bad? It’s can we make this idea good?” Nate told PopCulture. “We worked really hard over the pandemic towards it and yeah, no pressure, but it all turned out okay.”
With Audible releasing an impressive catalog of original content every month across a multitude of genres, Bob tells PopCulture a lot of the pair’s appeal for collaborating with the esteemed audiobook and podcast service stemmed from their mutual love for radio shows he heard growing up and shared with his own children. “I absolutely love [those radio shows] so much. First of all, my first love was radio — it’s where I first did comedy,” he said further sharing how he listened to a plethora of radio shows as a kid, particularly loving Bob and Ray, Derek and Clive, and Firesign Theater. “One of the reasons I wanted to do this was [because] Nate wrote this piece, Summer in Argyle. The first draft was totally written by him and I remember reading it and thinking, ‘You could listen to this with like a 12-year-old.’ There’s no swearing in it. There’s no sex in it. It’s fun and it’s kind of got a sweet nature, which not a lot of my humor has.”
Admitting how his dad was the only person he had in mind for the scripted podcast’s town narrator, Nate says he knew without a doubt he would “play it wonderfully” thanks to his charm. “Because who is a town narrator? You don’t have a template to go off of for that and so I thought that my dad would do a great job. He, of course, did and I think it just meshes. Not only is he the standalone good, but it just meshed really well with all of the other crazy silly characters,” he said. “So if you think the town narrator is weird, there’s a surgeon, who’s also a magician, but that’s episode eight. There’s a DMV that’s also a fancy restaurant. I mean, these are pretty big shoes to fill because of how crazy the world is and I think my dad just did a great job with it.”
“I love playing Jeremy the narrator,” Bob added when asked if he would return for a Season 2 of the Audible Original. “If we can get enough people to turn off their logic sensors and sit back and laugh, we would love to do more, bring this town to life again, and have more fun with the characters that we’ve already created and maybe some new loony tunes.”
All 10 episodes of Summer in Argyle are now available on Audible. Summer in Argyle is created and written by Nate Odenkirk and Bob Odenkirk, is directed by Tim Kalpakis with Naomi Odenkirk executive producing alongside creative producer and original music by Eban Schletter. For more on Bob Odenkirk, Nate Odenkirk and all your favorite stars, keep it locked to PopCulture.com for the latest!
