Under a Rock with Tig Notaro

Under a Rock with Tig Notaro is an American talk show produced by Funny or Die. Host Tig Notaro attempts to guess the identity of a celebrity guest on each episode. The show is sponsored by Amazon Alexa, and Alexa provides assistance as Notaro guesses. The first season consisted of six episodes and premiered online on June 4, 2019. The second season was released on November 5, 2019.^[1]

Under a Rock with Tig Notaro
Genre	Talk show
Created by	Funny or Die
Directed by	Amy Landecker Riki Lindhome
Presented by	Tig Notaro
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	12
Production
Production companies	Something Fierce Funny or Die
Original release
Network	Funny or Die
Release	June 4 (2019-06-04) – December 17, 2019 (2019-12-17)

Synopsis

Comedian Tig Notaro struggles to guess the identity of a celebrity guest, made difficult by the little pop culture she consumes and her inability to recognize celebrity faces. The guest offers her clues and Amazon Alexa assists Notaro.^[2]

Production

Development

Notaro developed the idea for the show due to her penchant for failing to recognize very famous people such as Anne Hathaway and Al Pacino.^[3]

The show is produced by Funny or Die and Something Fierce, the production company owned by Notaro and her wife Stephanie Allynne.^[1] The series is shot in front of a studio audience.^[1] The producers invite celebrity guests with whom Notaro is unfamiliar.

Series one was directed by Amy Landecker and season two was directed by Riki Lindhome.^[1][4] Thomas Ouellette is the head writer. Amazon Alexa sponsors the series.^[5]

Release

Under a Rock premiered on June 4, 2019 on FunnyorDie.com.^[5] Episodes in the first season were released every Tuesday for six weeks.^[5] Season two debuted on November 5, 2019 and ran for six more episodes.

Episodes

Season	Episodes		Originally released
			First released	Last released
1	6		June 4, 2019 (2019-06-04)	July 9, 2019 (2019-07-09)
2	6		November 5, 2019 (2019-11-05)	December 17, 2019 (2019-12-17)

Season 1

No. in season	Title	Directed by	Original release date
1[1]	"James Van Der Beek"	Amy Landecker	June 4, 2019 (2019-06-04)
2[4]	"Julie Bowen"	Amy Landecker	June 11, 2019 (2019-06-11)
3[4]	"Wyclef Jean"	Amy Landecker	June 18, 2019 (2019-06-18)
4[3]	"Melissa Joan Hart"	Amy Landecker	June 25, 2019 (2019-06-25)
5[3]	"Wolfgang Puck"	Amy Landecker	July 2, 2019 (2019-07-02)
6[6]	"Glenn Howerton"	Amy Landecker	July 9, 2019 (2019-07-09)

Season 2

No. in season	Title	Directed by	Original release date
1[7]	"Lena Headey"	Riki Lindhome	November 5, 2019 (2019-11-05)
2[8]	"Kaley Cuoco"	Riki Lindhome	November 12, 2019 (2019-11-12)
3	"Rich Eisen"	Riki Lindhome	November 19, 2019 (2019-11-19)
4	"Tony Shalhoub"	Riki Lindhome	December 3, 2019 (2019-12-03)
5	"Debby Ryan"	Riki Lindhome	December 10, 2019 (2019-12-10)
6	"Richard Jefferson"	Riki Lindhome	December 17, 2019 (2019-12-17)

Reception

Critical response

Under a Rock received mostly positive critical reception. In a review for Paste, John-Michael Bond wrote, "Her sweet-natured lack of knowledge creates a space of equal power, free of the star-struck ass kissing of James Corden or Jimmy Fallon’s nonstop nostalgia parade. Most importantly, it’s not cruel or based on anything negative."^[9] Writing for Slashfilm, Ethan Anderton stated, "The weird part of this program is that Amazon and their Alexa assistant are clearly sponsoring the show, because they help out with musical cues, hints, information, and more. It’s a little forced, but Tig Notaro’s dry charm makes it all coalesce together into something awkwardly hilarious."^[10]

Accolades

The series was nominated for a 2020 Producers Guild of America Award in the Outstanding Short-Form Program category.^[11] The series won the Branded Content: Series award at the 10th Streamy Awards.^[12]