One of the things we do as part of our writing production on Big Mouth is table reads – a process where we all get together and the talent and writers to do a real time read through of the script. Many primetime adult comedy animated sitcoms do this exercise – one that is labor intensive and expensive, but typically worth it. This is a good way to pressure test the script and see what’s working and what isn’t with a live audience.
For Big Mouth season 8, to celebrate the final episode table read, Netflix put together a big internal event at the Netflix animation studio with a large audience where we invited many more people than a normal table – family, friends and lots of people who had worked on the show over the years. Even though this was back in 2024, the majority of our table reads from 2020-2024 had actually been remote / zoom tables since Covid. Something we initially thought would be temporary, ended up being over 50 zoom tables! Ending this show with a giant table read was a fantastic celebration for the cast, crew and Netflix.
In many table reads, it’s difficult to gather all the cast (or even the majority of them) for any given episode – everyone is off working other projects, busy shooting and you are doing these table reads usually twice a month. When that happens, you have other talent or (more often) writers fill in the roles for any missing talent. This being a big event, we managed to secure most of the talent for the episode and it’s amazing to see all those actors in one place!
Some of what you get to see with a live table read is the cast interacting with each other, messing around and enjoying the script. I think everyone there knew how special this moment was – there was a kind of magic in the air. It’s fun to watch this and see the actors riffing off each other and doing improv – we try to capture as much of that chemistry as possible in the record and hopefully it comes through in the final product.
I remember seeing them having cameras set up and filming the table read, but we weren’t sure what was ever going to be done with the footage. Here we are over a year later and they released a video of the table read to the public as part of the promotion for the final season.
It’s a cool behind the scenes look at what was a very special event and something that most people would never get a chance to see, so I’m glad it’s out in the wild for everyone to watch.
If you do end up watching the table read, you’ll get to see a peak behind the curtain at the beginning as Mark Levin (one of the creators of the show) does an intro to the table and talks about the history of the show along with some funny stories about executive notes and cut scenes that couldn’t make it into the series.
Also a nice article from Variety here about the last table read.
nate funaro 