Matthew Perry's sitcom apex might still be his role as Chandler Bing on Friends, but it was his appearance on an earlier program that helped shape the emotional turmoil behind WandaVision's television pastiche.
In a Rolling Stone oral history on the making of WandaVision, showrunner Jac Schaeffer revealed how she initially approached dissecting Wanda Maximoff's grief through sitcom tropes that encouraged comfort and stability amongst viewers. "In my original pitch, there was the idea that we would start in the sitcoms, that we would have several episodes in a row that were very entrenched in the world and the tone, but that the truth of the scenario would sort of be fraying at the edges… And the feeling of 'very special episodes' was something I was chasing from Day One," she said. "With a sitcom, with comedies, the creators make a pact with the audience that you're in a safe space. Everything's going to be resolved. And these episodes break from that and violate that agreement. I remember them in my body. I remember the sick feeling that I would have."
To create this ongoing whiplash, Schaeffer cited a tragic storyline from the 1985 sitcom Growing Pains where Perry, who briefly starred as Sandy, a love interest of Tracey Gold's Carol Seaver, succumbed to injuries in the hospital after a drunk-driving accident. As she put it, that twist "was so shocking and wrong and such a betrayal of the agreement that the show has with the audience. I was like, 'That's what I want to do!' I want to chase that feeling with intention. I want to violate our agreement with the audience and give them that freaky, sick feeling because that's what Wanda is experiencing."
WandaVision's '80s-centric fifth episode "On a Very Special Episode..." not only parodied Growing Pains in its opening credits but also the ways in which older sitcoms addressed serious topics within family-friendly narratives. Most recently, Perry reunited with his Friends co-stars for HBO Max's Friends: The Reunion special, which premiered over seventeen years after the show aired its series finale.
Written by Jac Schaeffer and directed by Matt Shakman, WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany as Vision, Randall Park as Agent Jimmy Woo, Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau and Kathryn Hahn as Agnes. The full series is streaming on Disney+.
Source: Rolling Stone