How NBC's short-lived Sunnyside influenced Kal Penn's new memoir

The New York Times

Penn co-created and starred in the short-lived Michael Schur-produced fall 2019 NBC comedy Sunnyside in which he plays a former New York City council member who helps out immigrant in search of the American dream. "In the book’s outline, there was no ending," Penn says of his book You Can't Be Serious, which was released Tuesday. "I always struggled with that. I thought there was going to have to be some kind of a positive wrap-up, a story of triumph after years of typecasting and racism. And then Sunnyside happened. I sold this show after I had already started writing the book. There’s a chapter I write about how it’s truly my dream show: a big network (NBC), a diverse, patriotic comedy that would hopefully bring people together and make them laugh. And then it slowly unraveled. With everything else in the book, I have the perspective of time. This was still raw. I ended up putting it as the last real chapter because it’s a perfect example of how much has changed and how much has yet to change. We often think of goals as: Everything has now been fixed, so end of story. In reality, everything is a constant mess of back and forth."