Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Chit Show.”
If you’re on TikTok, you probably know Chit. A bowl-headed weirdo with an intense stare and a single ear piercing, Chit is behind such viral catchphrases as “Do it lady.” He’s also the reason why creator Jay Renshaw’s page has 2.2 million followers and 31.8 million likes.
“[‘The Chit Show’] kind of snowballed over a period of two months,” Renshaw told TheWrap. It started when co-creators Renshaw and Kiel Kennedy, both of whom are part of The Groundlings, posted the first video of Chit typing nonsense into his computer.
“It was meant to be a one-off, and the response was so great that we thought, ‘OK, well, we can do one more.’ And the response was even better the second time,” Renshaw recalled. “Especially when we added more characters to fill out the office, we realized that it had the sustainability of a serialized show. As the series progresses, the narrative becomes stronger and stronger, to the point where it really feels like we’re following a coherent story.”
“The Chit Show” started as a series of shorts about a guy (Kennedy) filming his odd coworker. But as the series has progressed, it’s become a tiny corporate saga about a mismatched family fighting to keep their company afloat amidst a threatening merger. It’s been repeatedly compared to “The Office,” a compliment that Renshaw finds “thrilling.”
“Though it’s almost more of like a ‘Scooby-Doo’ gang type show where the four of them are going to basically solve a problem,” he added.
It’s not just the scope of this universe that’s evolved over time but the degree of actors on “The Chit Show.” The second to last episode teased meeting the company’s founder. After a fake out that makes it look like Chit’s the founder — a common fan theory — the camera reveals that the real founder is none other than “Better Call Saul” and “Mr. Show” star Bob Odenkirk.
Landing Odenkirk wasn’t too much of a stretch since the company that manages Renshaw, OPE Partners, is owned by the “Nobody” star’s wife, Naomi Odenkirk. What was surprising was learning that Odenkirk was a fan of the TikTok show.
“We knew we needed someone with a lot of gravitas but who could also sell a joke. Bob is so clearly that person because he’s played such a range of characters,” Renshaw said.
However, it’s the other big name on “The Chit Show” that stands as its biggest surprise. From Episode 1, Chit has been compared to Will Forte. And in the season finale it’s revealed that the “SNL” and “Last Man on Earth” star plays none other than Chit’s father, the owner of the ominous Trust Core. It’s only thanks to Chit’s incompetence and inability to do any actual accounting that he and his little work family are saved from the corporate takeover.
“We went from filming with Bob to filming with Will the next day, and it just felt like a surreal dream because they were both just master classes to watch and learn from. To hear them reading our material and performing — it was so cool,” Renshaw said.
The series’ co-creator and star has long been aware of the Forte comparisons. In an earlier episode, he even had Chit guess the word “Forte” in Wordle during an episode as a little Easter egg for fans.
As for what’s next for Chit, Renshaw is currently figuring that out. At the moment, nearly everything is up in the air, like whether Season 2 will stay on social media or whether the team will stick with shortform episodes. But the one certainty is that Chit will return.
“We’re starting the development of what would be next. There’s some interesting conversations as to like, does it stay on social media? Do we aim for a larger platform? In some ways, you can’t get larger than YouTube and some social media. It’s just a matter of where we think it will flourish the best and where the most people can receive it,” Rensahw said. “It’s very early, but it’s so exciting to see the response that it’s gotten so far. It’s really encouraging.”
