Josiah Johnson Is Proving He Is a Legend and Creative Force to Watch Through His Hit Animation TV Comedy, "Legends of Chamberlain Heights"

I had the good fortune to chat with Josiah Johnson for a short but fun interview about his work as co-creator, executive producer, writers and starring voice-talent for Comedy Central series Legends of Chamberlain Heights.

Powered by Bento Box Entertainment (Bob’s Burgers), the show features bombastic satire and features one of the only black casts in animation. It also is highlighted by music composed by platinum-selling neo soul artist Erykah Badu, as well as animation by The Simpson’s Brad Ableson, and the voice talents of The Boondocks' legend Carl Jones.

Josiah & his writing partner Quinn Hawking first conceived of Legends as benchwarmers on the UCLA basketball team. Inspired the by their personal lives, the show is about three high school freshman – Jamal, Grover and Milk – who live their lives from the end of the bench and outside the “in” crowd. The trio (voiced by Josiah & Quinn) tries, and mostly fails, to get through day-to-day life both on and off the court. Regardless, they press on like the legends they think they are.

The duo has a rich history of success in sports-related media production, having served in many capacities at NFL Network, Showtime, Fox Sports, BET and ESPN. They brought their personal and professional experiences together, synthesized into one of the most hilarious shows on television that I’ve ever seen. Read on below to learn more about Josiah’s path to legendary success, his creative process, and some of his top-notch collaborators.

What was your favorite episode to work on this past season?

Josiah: My favorite episode from season 1 without a doubt was the Tupaquia episode. I forget when we ran it in the season (editor’s note: epsiode 5), but it was written by Carl Jones, who was a co-EP on the show, and used to work on Boondocks and Black Dynamite. He’s actually dating Erykah Badu, who is our music supervisor.

The story behind that episode: we were all pitching episode ideas early on in season 1. Literally, Carl was in the room, and he was like “yo, I’ve got this idea, one of the Legends is dating a cross-dressing stripper with a fat ass and looks like Tupac, and then they don’t know if it’s Tupac or not.” The whole room was like, “that’s the craziest shit I’ve ever heard.” So, that concept, and seeing the product being delivered and how it turned out was awesome. We caught a lot of flack from some Tupac fans. But, we’re all Tupac fans, so it was more of a joke than anything. We had a great time with that episode. My favorite from season 1, without a doubt.

So zooming out to the show as a whole. In the creative process, working on the show, what would you say is your favorite part?

Josiah: My favorite part of that is honestly just being around such an amazing group of talented people. Everyone from our writers, our animators, our supervising director Brad Abelson who used to work on The Simpsons, doing all the artwork. Obviously, being able to work with Quinn Hawking, who’s co-writer on the show with me. He’s one of my best friends, we used to play basketball at UCLA together. Going from sitting on the bench with Quinn at UCLA to now having a TV show on Comedy Central, sometimes we have to pinch ourselves and ask ourselves: is this real life? Going from playing basketball, kind of being stuck in that world, and then we both worked in SportsCenter right after we got out of college, working on Thursday Night football and pregame and postgame shows on the NFL network....

We kind of always dreamed about doing something like this, but I never could have imagined we would be working in animation. Now, actually being there every day and watching it on television has been a tremendous and amazing experience.

So season 2 is coming up. Understandably, you can’t give away all the secrets, but what are some of the differences that viewers can expect from season 2 of Legends?

Josiah: Season 2, we had to elevate the bar, picking up where one left off. In Two, there’s a little bit more social commentary, a lot more topical, dealing with events going on in society nowadays. There’s an episode on gentrification. That episode where Milk goes to a tanning salon and becomes black and gets to experience that. The whole first season he portrays himself as black, now he actually gets to feel that experience. An episode Quinn and I actually wrote, the Legends go on a trip to Myrtle Beach for a basketball tournament. Anybody who’s done any sports team road trips knows that the goal is always kind of just to get your nut. So, that’s a simple story, but we had a lot of fun with it. There’s a lot more social commentary, trying to be a lot more topical in terms of the subject matter that we cover.

Is this topical focus similar to the move that South Park has done recently, where they literally follow current events instead of a more absurdist social commentary?

Josiah: We definitely have an over-arcing theme during the season, but it’s hard to be as topical as South Park, they do their show in six days, so literally something that happened the previous week ends up on one of their episodes. But, we definitely use them as a role model in terms of trying to follow their lead. We also touch a lot of specific subjects, being a show geared towards an urban demographic. Working at Comedy Central, South Park has a mainstay there as their most watched show. You would be remiss if you weren’t, not copying them, but at least trying to emulate some of the things that they do.

What can you share with us about the music for the show? Erykah Badu seems to really elevate the show.

Josiah: Yes, Erykah Badu and a guy named Frank Ciampi. Both very talented. Erykah handles a lot of the music. She’s dating Carl Jones. I remember, right before we first started the show, Carl mentioned Erykah would be interested in doing music. We’re all just like “Are you fucking kidding me, of course!” She’s an icon, I listened to her music for the better part of 20 years. I think the 20th anniversary of Baduizm is coming up. But, I remember as a kid having a crush on her and being in love with her music. And then to have her be a part of the project is literally fucking awesome.

Funny story, she came by our writer’s room one day randomly. Her and Carl facetimed sometime, and he asked us, “Erykah wants to come by, is everybody cool with that?” Obviously it was a unanimous yes in the room. The writer’s room, we’re in there 10 to 12 hours a day and it generally smelled like farts and depression. It has a really distinct odor it. She literally walked in the room and had the most beautiful smelling scent I’ve ever smelled in my life.

Her aura and her scent engulfed the whole room and stayed there a day and a half, it was the most incredible smell. It’s really hard for me to even describe, you know, potpourri or something like that, but literally just the most amazing scent. When she walks in, she has this certain grace and elegance about her that’s obviously unmatched and unrivaled.

What’s the coolest part of working with her in terms of the creative process? It seems like it was fortuitous that you had that connection with Carl.

Josiah: Every week we do a music spotting session for every episode. She’ll be in LA or we’ll be on the phone when she’s in Dallas or Brooklyn. We go over the episode, working on different cues. When we give her an idea of something we’re looking for musically, her team is able to turn that idea around and deliver incredible, amazing music cues. Also, she writes a lot of lyrics for those cues that are hilarious, so she has a natural comedic sense about her. She’s just one of the most talented human beings on the planet. When you talk to her on the phone, you kind of don’t want to embarrass yourself or say something dumb, but she’s one of the easiest people to work with. Every time you watch an episode and you hear one of her cues, you see she puts the extra effort in to make the scene funnier with the music.

Related to the show, but a little outside of it...what are your predictions for who’s going to win the NBA championship this year?

Josiah: I’m a big LeBron James fan. The Cavs have been a little bit up and down this year, but come playoff time, I know they’ll lock in. In the finals last year, I remember sitting down watching one of the greatest comebacks in history. So, I can never bet against LeBron no matter what. Obviously, the Warriors with Kevin Durant are a formidable opponent, but they’ve got to get past the Spurs. Seeing a Warriors/Thunder matchup during the playoffs, it’s hard for me root against Westbrook. He doesn’t have the team, but he’s a UCLA guy. He deserves to be MVP.

I gotta go with the Cavs. I would love to see a Warriors/Cavs rematch. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cavs/Spurs. Popovich is an amazing coach and Kawhi Leonard is playing at MVP level. It’d be great to see another Warriors/Cavs matchup, I think it’s the third in the row. I’m not getting tired of it, though I know some people probably are.

For fans of the show, where would you suggest are the best places to follow you on social media?

Josiah: The best place to follow me is actually the Legends twitter account, @LegendsofCH, which I’m actually the manager of. I go a little overboard with the posts, tweeting all the time. Literally all hours of the day, I don’t really believe in designated off time. If something’s trending and topical and I can relate it to the show or communicate with fans, I’m on Legends of CH account nonstop. Also, my personal account is @KingJosiah54. I tweet from there a little bit. Also, we’ve got a Legends Instagram account, which is @LegendsofCH. We post a lot more content on that.

I’m a big fan of social media and being able to reach and engage and talk to fans, seeing what they love, seeing what they hate, having discussions with them. I try to make them laugh. My goal every day is to make at least 20 people respond with a bunch of crying emojis or skeleton emojis that signify that they love something I put up. It’s a great place for us to also test material for the show, getting responses on Twitter and Instagram that we can incorporate into the episodes down the line. I’m a big fan of social media to engage and get in touch with fans, let them know that they’re loved and appreciated.

Season 2 of Legends of Chamberlain Heights returns sometime this summer. Be sure to follow Josiah & the Legends on social media, and for full episodes you can visit Comedy Central's page here.