Jeff and Liz Astrof started their “Stumble” pursuit by being Netflix’s “Cheer” and Navarro College head cheer coach Monica Aldama’s biggest fans.
“We were obsessed with it,” Jeff told TheWrap. “I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to do ‘Cheer?’ But Monica goes to the worst cheer team in America.”
Thus, NBC’s cheer mockumentary series “Stumble” was born. The Astrofs’ speciality has always been underdog stories. This comedy series was no different. Inspired by the variety of trials and tribulations from the docuseries, the sibling duo created a rag-tag group of cheerleaders all competing for a coveted junior collegiate national championship. Aldama also serves as an executive producer.
When Courtney (Jenn Lyon) gets fired from her head coaching position at a competitive cheer program after misconduct with her cheerleaders, she is not ready to throw away the pom poms and high flying. Determined to still bring star power to the junior college cheer world, she attempts to rebuild her career with a team of misfits.
“I love shows with high stakes,” Jeff said. “If you zoom in on this town and these people and competitive junior college cheer, the stakes are so high, but if you pull back the microscope, it’s just another dot on the map.”
“What we loved about the docuseries is that at the end, we were standing at our TVs, screaming when they were in Daytona,” Liz Astrof said of the Florida town in which national championship takes place each year. “We were not only cheering for them to win. It was because we wanted these kids who had nothing, who she saved, to be invested in something. In our show, we came up with these characters that all have their challenges and would be nowhere if they didn’t have cheer.”
Liz specifically loved finding the humor in the underdog stories. Desperate for anyone with a cheerleading bone in their bodies, Courtney settles for one cheerleader with narcolepsy, a thief who could tumble, a washed-up football player and a 30-something college dropout.
The Astrofs had a secret motivation for creating “Stumble” and that was meeting Aldama herself. After some convincing, the 16-time national champion agreed to executive produce the series alongside the siblings.
Jeff said that non-writing producers typically scare him, but once he met Aldama he knew it would be a different story. Her level of perfectionism pushed them to make a better show and keep the cheer community happy.
“In the beginning, she was a little bit horrified as to what we were writing,” Liz said. “She kept saying, ‘but my cheerleaders, the cheer community is going to be watching, and it has to be authentic.’”
But the executive producer came around to it and even appeared in an episode of the season. As she does with her own cheer squad, Aldama had opinions about the cheer in the series as well. Though it is a comedy, the NBC show used Navarro’s choreographer Dalston Delgado, and even had the same person who creates Navarro’s music create hits for the comedy series. Aldama’s stamp is all over “Stumble.”
“Monica looks at every cut of everything,” Jeff said. “She’s like, ‘That looks boo boo. This stunt that’s a three, but that’s the best we’re going to get.’ Her level of perfection is so high, so it’s really good. She challenges us and keeps us honest with the cheer.”
Aldama wanted the series to have a squad of 30 like she has at Navarro, but the Astrofs said the half-hour comedy series only had a budget for six cheerleaders. The pilot shows they found a compromise introducing a team of 10. As for the woman who seemingly plays her, the Astrofs claimed that Courtney (Lyon) was only loosely based on the cheer icon.
“We didn’t want to do an impression of Monica,” Jeff said. “Monica is very self possessed and very put together. Monica rarely shows emotion. And Courtney was really, really humbled and she’s more outward. She’s a little more flawed than Monica is.”
Courtney and her husband Boone, played by Taran Killam, are the heart of the series. And the Astrofs assured fans that they are a couple you’re not afraid is going to break up. Kristin Chenoweth rounds out the cast as Courtney’s former assistant coach and now rival Tina Istiny. And yes, there’s a joke in there about her height.
“Stumble” airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and streams the next day on Peacock.
