“This ensemble magically formed in front of our eyes,” says Steve Molaro about the creation of the series Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.
Molaro created the series, along with Steve Holland and Chuck Lorre, after working on the hit shows The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon.
Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage is a direct sequel to and spin-off of Young Sheldon that focuses on the marriage of young parents Georgie Cooper and Mandy McAllister as they raise their infant daughter in Texas while navigating the challenges of adulthood, parenting and marriage.
The series stars Montana Jordan and Emily Osment as the title characters, along with Rachel Bay Jones and Will Sasso as Mandy’s parents, Dougie Baldwin as Mandy’s brother, and Jessie Prez as Georgie’s co-worker.
Explaining the thought process behind the series, Molaro says, “There was this really undeniable chemistry between Montana and Emily and the fact that they had a built-in family, and we’d already met her parents, so it just felt it was an opportunity to just keep things going and breathe new life into these characters.”
However, whereas Young Sheldon was a single camera comedy, Molaro suggested that the story be told via a multi-camera series, as The Big Bang Theory had been. He says that when he presented this structure to Lorre, Lorre uttered, “You son of a b*tch. You’re making me excited about multi-cam.”
For Jordan, the switch to a performing in front of a live audience wasn’t that traumatic. “I play it the same way, baby,” he says with a laugh. “I mean, the only thing is that you got to listen for the laugh from the audience and all that.”
Osment admits that it’s the format that she prefers. “I think just the schedule of multi-cam is just delightful. You get a little bit more sleep in between workdays, and you come to work hopped up on your feet. I think that’s definitely changed my energy every day. I’m just an Energizer Bunny, I think, most of the time now.”
Speaking about the title, and the inclusion of the words ‘first marriage’ in it, Lorre says that it’s not meant to insinuate anything, but, “Georgie’s 19. He dropped out of high school. How smooth do you think this marriage is going to go? And, yes, there’s some pessimism in the word ‘first,’ but there’s hope as well, if you’re patient with us.”
Holland adds, “I think one of the fun things about this show for us was this main couple who love each other but are not coming into this marriage in the best of circumstances. They barely knew each other. They got pregnant and had a baby right away. So it was never going to be an easy road for them. And I think the ‘first marriage’ in the title is just a fun sort of wink to that fact.”
Also factoring into the storytelling is that the series is set in 1995, which Molaro says does change present challenges, “Sometimes in the writers room we’ll have a discussion about the use of certain phrases, like, someone will say, ‘I don’t think people said that in 1995, that’s more of a 2003 thing.’ So we are always looking things up to keep everything as accurate as possible.”
Another aspect of the time period, Molaro points out is, “there are no cell phones, so there’s no scrolling, there’s no face time. What you do see is a lot more people showing up and talking to each other face to face. And we think that that’s really pleasant and overall, for the stories that we’re telling, the fact that there’s no cell phones is a plus.”
At this point in the series, a large part of the narrative hinges on the fact that Georgie and Mandy are living with her parents, a situation that may change down the road, but not any time soon, says Molaro. “We haven’t talked about much about the future. Right now, having all of them under the same roof is helpful and fun. And, let’s not forget, Mandy is carrying an enormous amount of credit card debt, so that has bought us some time, and we’ll feel it out as we go.”
He says that with this creative team there’s a history to the way they work at play here. “I mean, even throughout Big Bang, which was 12 seasons, we were never huge fans of planning things out too far in advance, because we like to let things grow organically. So there’s no plan here, we just like to let things happen.”
This is a bit of what happened during the creation of the opening credits sequence, which features Georgie and Mandy performing a spirited tango.
Molaro, who says that when the idea came to him, “I was just like, ‘Oh, It would be fun if they were dancing. Oh, wait, a tango makes sense. He explains that a tango seemed so appropriate, because, “That dance has a sexy, rocky relationship, love/hate vibe to it, so it was leaning into that with this couple felt just right.”
From there Molaro pitched the idea to Lorre who was immediately onboard. Then he checked with Jordan and Osment who were also all in. After that, “We got some choreographers from Dancing with the Stars who came in and worked with Montana and Emily, and as you can see it came out just adorable.”
Lorre isn’t shy about pointing out that there is no guarantee that a series is going to be a success, saying, “I think there’s no formula for this other than trust your own response. If I think something is worth writing about or characters are really interesting or wonderful or terrible people, but wonderful, terrible people, then I trust that feeling. You just go forward on faith. It’s just terrifying.”
Given this, Molaro implores viewers to at least give Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage a try. “Whether you’re a Big Bang or Young Sheldon fan, or you never watched either of those shows, I think you can jump in and enjoy this right out of the gate. We’re having a good time here, so come join us for the ride.”
