This time I’m letting Parker Young talk.
Parker basically got his big break as an actor when he secured a role in the hilarious ABC sitcom Suburgatory, and although he’s been working steadily ever since, he’s had to endure being a part of too many short-lived series, which is particularly disappointing when those series invariably tend to be pretty great. As such, I for one am rooting for his luck to change, because his new series, CBS’s vampire comedy Eternally Yours, is already starting out very solidly.
I interviewed Parker late last year when I did a piece for Vulture that took a look back at Suburgatory, which at the time had just found its way back to streaming services after having been MIA pretty much since it was canceled. The interview was via Zoom, and it was with Parker, his co-stars Jane Levy and Carly Chakin, and series creator Emily Kapnek, and after we finished our conversation, I got an email from Parker, thanking me for a great reunion, and since I’d also been a fan of his short-lived Fox sitcom Enlisted, I pitched him on being a guest on the podcast. He said he’d love to do it, but he asked if we could wait until he had something else to promote…and now he does, so here we are! Mind you, we had to get past a tiny technical issue when Zoom asked him for an access code that I neither sent him nor asked to have on there, but once we did, things went swimmingly.
During the course of our conversation, we of course talked about all three of the series I’ve already mentioned, so expect solid sections on Eternally Yours, Suburgatory, and Enlisted. We also talked about Imposters, a series which you have to buy outright to watch nowadays because it’s not streaming anywhere, the underrated Chuck Lorre sitcom The United States of Al, and his one-off appearance in season one of Fox’s Best Medicine which finds him emerging from the woods, baring his chest. It’s decidedly memorable. In addition, we talk about the experience of doing an episode of Mad Men, and – because I couldn’t resist the title – I even asked him about being in the film Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust.
This is another one of those conversations where you’d think we’d known each other for ages when, in fact, this is only the second conversation we’d ever had. But Parker’s just a nice, earnest, hardworking guy who does whatever he can to provide for his family while delivering solid comedic and dramatic performances on the regular. And if you aren’t a full-on Parker Young fan by the time you reach his reaction to my question about a failed pilot, then you’re clearly made of stone.
All right, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Parker Young talk.
