Basketball superstar Stephen Curry spent the early part of August playing for an Olympic gold medal with Team USA. After scoring some key points, he broke out his signature “Night, Night” celebration. In the comedy mockumentary “Mr. Throwback,” now streaming on Peacock, Curry credits the move to his fictional middle school teammate, Danny Grossman, played by Adam Pally.
The story is that Grossman was a sixth grade basketball phenom until it was revealed that he was actually 14 years old, bringing an end to his playing days. In the six-episode series, Pally portrays a down-on-his-luck memorabilia dealer who turns to his former teammate, Curry, in a desperate moment.
Erick Peyton, an executive producer on “Mr. Throwback,” works with Curry at Unanimous Media. “The company is about inspiring through media; our different silos are family, faith and sports,” said Peyton. “With ‘Mr. Throwback,’ we look at that as about family.”
The story of “Mr. Throwback” and the structure of the show came from Pally, David Caspe, Matthew Libman and Daniel Libman with Curry as the inspiration. “We loved the vibe of these guys,” said Peyton, who, along with Tiffany Williams (COO of Thirty Ink) were the basis for actress Ego Nwodim’s character. “You’ll see how comfortable Stephen is and you’ll see the connectivity between all of the characters.”
The series includes a considerable amount of improvisation, which Curry did extremely well. “There were lines within the show that gave him the base. By him really capturing those lines, it allowed him to jump in that pool with Adam and Ego to improv,” said Peyton.
Today Curry is a sports superstar, but 25 years ago he was a middle schooler hooping with other kids. “The writers did a really good job of creating something that feels like it could actually happen,” Peyton said. “It’s not grounded in truth, but…it reflects the work Stephen and I did on making sure that all the scenes that were about his life had some kind of truth to it.”
Previously, Peyton and Curry were executive producers on the Oscar-winning documentary “The Queen of Basketball,” about the late Lusia Harris, who scored the first-ever basket in women’s Olympic basketball.
“Even though it’s about basketball, it’s really about finding human stories,” said Peyton. “The goal is to build upon that and tell more stories.”
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