Justin Theroux is crediting his recent vacation with Jimmy Kimmel for the development of Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s All in The Family and The Jeffersons.
The live event, which aired on ABC became a surprise hit dominating in the ratings when it aired Wednesday night. The Leftovers star was one of the executive producers on the project and he shared the hilarious story behind the making of the special.
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Jennifer Aniston’s ex took to Instagram Thursday to share that he and Kimmel, who also hosted the star-studded special, were smoking weed during some time off together when they came up with the idea of the live staging.
“One time I went on vacation with [jimmykimmel],” Theroux wrote on his Instagram Stories. “And we MIGHT have smoked something… and then we had an idea.”
He then added a video that read, “What if we took old great sitcoms and aired them live on television… with an incredible cast. Woahhhh.”
Justin then added a slide that simply read “Cut to:” before adding a series of posts with a photo of himself on set and a caption that read, “So… thanks, weed.”
The special featured big names in Hollywood in a staging of iconic episodes of All in the Family and The Jeffersons. The show featured Marisa Tomei, Woody Harrelson, Jamie Foxx, Wanda Sykes, Ellie Kemper, Kerry Washington, Will Ferrell, Ike Barinholtz, Sean Hayes, Jovan Adepo, Anthony Anderson, Jackรฉe Harry and Stephen Tobolowsky.
Live in Front of a Studio Audience, which re-aired on ABC Saturday, dominated the ratings in its first outing with an average 1.8 demo rating and 10.4 million total viewers. The special gave ABC its third-highest comedy broadcast for the 2018-19 season, beating only the first two episodes of The Conners‘ first season.
The special surprised fans featuring the surprise appearance of original Jeffersons cast member Marla Gibbs, who reprised her role of Florence Johnston. One Day At A Time star Justina Machado had been previously billed to take on the role at the special, but it appears to be a red herring given the network gave no explanation for her replacement with Gibbs.
Among the other highlights from the show, Foxx made headlines when he broke character after flubbing one of his lines.
“It’s live,” Foxx said. “Everyone sitting at home just thinks their TV messed up.” He then turned around, fought back a moment of laughter, finished the joke and accepted praise from the cheering audience.
Live in Front of a Studio Audience can be streamed on Hulu.
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