“Black Friday,” that post-Thanksgiving orgy of shopping and bargain-hunting, has descended upon us in stores and malls nationwide.
The irony of the day isn’t lost on Colton Dunn vis a vis his role as sarcastic intercom king Garrett on “Superstore,” NBC’s workplace comedy set in Cloud 9, a Costco-type store in suburban St. Louis.
After all, Dunn, 40, worked for two Manhattan video stores from 1997-2000: Two Boots Video (Avenue A & 3rd) and Kim’s West (Bleecker & West 10th) — and had a taste of dealing with consumers.
“The interesting thing about Kim’s is that they specialized in hard-to-find films, so we ended up getting very intense film people at the store who would sometimes get mad when we didn’t have some rare film they’d heard of,” says Dunn. “The good side of the job — this was before streaming video — was that I got free rentals all the time. The hard part was trying to find movies for people especially if they didn’t know the title or synopsis: ‘It’s Nick Cage and there’s a scene where he’s yelling.’ Dude, that’s most of Nick Cage’s movies.”
Dunn, who recurred as animal control officer Brett Hull on “Parks and Recreation” — and garnered three Emmy nods for his writing on “Key & Peele” — spends all his screen time on “Superstore” seated, since Garrett uses a wheelchair.
“When they created the character of Garrett and I came on board, he was using a wheelchair, and they auditioned people who use wheelchairs and people with disabilities,” Dunn says. “In putting together the ensemble cast [America Ferrera, Ben Feldman, Lauren Ash, Mark McKinney, Nichole Bloom and Nico Santos] they decided to go with my energy. We did have the discussion of losing the wheelchair and no longer having Garrett use it, but the heart of the show is diversity in the workplace … and we want the show to be relatable, so why would we do that? For us, it felt like an opportunity to … bring that character into people’s homes who many not have ever met someone who uses a wheelchair — and have him be a fun, cool character. His disability is such a small part of what makes Garrett who he is.”
“Superstore,” now in its third season, has never explained why Garrett uses a wheelchair, though in an episode earlier this season, Garrett’s co-workers tried to find out (to no avail).
“We purposely didn’t answer that question,” Dunn says. “The way Garrett responded to that was that it didn’t matter what it was — that whatever it was could possibly put him in a box he doesn’t want to be a part of. It’s natural to be curious when you see something outside of what your ‘normal’ is … We tried to deal with it comically, with Garrett playing up random different ways it could’ve happened, with the emotion of, ‘If I feel like sharing that information, I’ll share it. It’s not an interview question.’ ”
Dunn, though, does have his own ideas regarding Garrett’s wheelchair. “When I first started approaching the role I actually thought of it as an injury sustained overseas in war,” he says. “I wanted to be representing veterans who try to come back [to the US] and join the workforce.
“In no way is this a canon to the show,” he says. “It’s just me.”