The Naked Brothers Band is an American musical comedy television series created by Polly Draper, which aired on Nickelodeon from February 3, 2007, to June 13, 2009. It depicts the daily lives of Draper's sons, who lead a faux world-renowned children's rock band in New York City. As a mockumentary, the storyline is an embellished satire of their real lives, and the fictional presence of a camera is often acknowledged. The show stars Nat Wolff and Alex Wolff, the lead singer-songwriter and drummer, respectively. Nat's fictional female love interest (Allie DiMeco) and real-life friends Thomas Batuello, David Levi, and Cooper Pillot, as well as Qaasim Middleton—who has no prior acquaintance with the family—are featured as the other band members, with Draper's jazz musician husband Michael Wolff as his sons' widowed accordion-playing dad and her niece Jesse Draper portraying the group's babysitter.
The series is a spin-off of Polly Draper's film of the same name that was picked up by the network, premiering in January 2007. Draper, known for her starring role in Thirtysomething, is the executive producer; she serves as showrunner, and often writer and director. Albie Hecht, former president of Nickelodeon Entertainment and Spike TV, is the other executive producer, under his Worldwide Biggies tag. Michael Wolff, who led the band on The Arsenio Hall Show, serves as co-executive producer and music supervisor, with Draper's brother Tim as consulting producer.
When the show debuted on the channel, it aired two episodes, garnering 3.7 million viewers. Viacom announced that the "series delivered Nickelodeon's highest-rated premiere in seven years" and it became favorable for children aged 6–11. Following the show's premiere, the band's song "Crazy Car" was placed on the Billboard Hot 100, and the first and second season soundtrack albums were on the top 200 Billboard charts. The Naked Brothers Band was nominated for several awards, earning a Broadcast Music, Inc. Award and one Writers Guild of America Award. The series concluded after three seasons because the network began placing high shooting demands on the family that would interfere with the siblings' schooling.
Development
The series' title derived from an incident when the brothers were very young: they came out of the bathtub and said, "We're the naked brothers band!" Although Nat revised the band's title to The Silver Boulders in preschool, Polly Draper revived it as she felt it would be more suitable for the show.
Nat's music, which he has been composing at the piano from the time he was 5, emboldens the scripts Draper writes for many of the episodes. She also acknowledges how the series differs from other children's shows in terms of not using a laugh track.
Draper explains the events that precede the show: "Nat decided he wanted to film his own sitcom, so we did a film called Don't Eat Off My Plate. I pretended to interview his friends and do a documentary." Following the home video, Draper had the idea of making a mockumentary film about the band; she decided to introduce them as music icons like the Beatles. Filmed in mid-2004, the movie was originally independent, and interior scenes were vastly filmed in the family's apartment. Draper's brother Tim, a venture capitalist, invested in the shoot, and she and her husband Michael Wolff's famous celebrity friends are featured making cameo appearances.
In late 2005, Draper and Wolff entered the film at the Hamptons International Film Festival, where it received high applause from the audience. Albie Hecht, former president of film and television entertainment for Nickelodeon, attended the screening. He sold the film to Nickelodeon and proposed developing a television series based on it. The network was eager to buy the film after Hecht and his agent conducted market research that revealed substantial success with children, but when urging the family to start working on the series, Draper and Wolff were initially reluctant to allow their sons into the industry. The family later decided to proceed, however, under certain conditions, which Nickelodeon approved.
Production Principal photography takes place at Kidzhouse Entertainment, the stage one division of Broadway Stages in Brooklyn, New York over the summer and early fall. That way, the boys are able to continue attending private school throughout most of the year.
Being the showrunner—or leading executive producer, Polly Draper oversees the casting, manages the writers' room, edits scripts, and conveys storyline ideas for each episode. In addition to Draper serving as head writer, the other writers for the series have previously scripted other television shows for Nickelodeon. They include Magda Liolis, Michael Rubiner and Bob Mittenthal, and Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi. McRobb and Viscardi only penned the script for the first season's two-part episode television movie "Battle of the Bands". By the third season, Mittenthal emerged as a senior writer, earning the title of co-executive producer.
Albie Hecht is the other executive producer; his production company Worldwide Biggies distributes the series, in association with Nickelodeon Television. Michael Wolff, a jazz musician often noted for leading the band on The Arsenio Hall Show, also serves as co-executive producer, with Tim Draper as consulting producer. Production facilities producers Ken H. Keller—also the cinematographer—and his wife, Caron Rudner, own the filming studio, Kidzhouse Entertainment, which is another distributor for the show.
Polly Draper and Melanie Mayron, both known for co-starring in Thirtysomething, directed the first season. During the second season, Jonathan Judge was added as a third director. The last episode Mayron directed for that season, and thus for the series, featured her as an estranged fan on the radio, providing the voice over. By the third season, Draper and Judge directed every other television movie, with Mark Salisbury directing the initial animated special, and Rosario Roveto, Jr. directing the concluding episode.
Draper managed to also keep an eye on her two boys. For example, the cast was filming an episode that featured the band recording a video; Nat, who did not want to make out in the scene due to his crush Rosalina watching, mistakenly smooches her. He then explains to his mother that he was confused as to what the instructions were. The scene being filmed was that of the first season's ninth episode "First Kiss (On the Lips, That is)", which was directed by Melanie Mayron. In another instance, during production for the fourth episode of the second season, as the boys play restlessly on a purple sofa, their mother (who was not directing the episode) admonishes them over the loudspeaker by saying, "Both of you, try to smile more."
Casting According to New York Times author Felicia R. Lee, the siblings act "chatty, guileless, fun-loving", much as they do in their genuine lives. She also notes that, of the show's characters, "no one over 18 has much sense." Draper's role as creator—the developer of the original characters—allowed her to contemplate her boys' fictional birth mother as deceased; her name is never revealed. However, in the show, the boys' father is infatuated with an estranged lady named Betty. Moreover, although portraying fictional characters, the ensemble cast—including Qaasim Middleton, as well as real-life friends David Levi, Joshua Kaye, Thomas Batuello, and Cooper Pillot—keep their full names on-screen. Nonetheless, Allie DiMeco plays Rosalina; the siblings' cousin Jesse Draper portrays Jesse Cook; and Michael Wolff plays the siblings' father, Sonny, the latter whom Draper notes she wrote similar to that of a child.
The Timmerman Brothers—a band no longer famous—consists of three siblings, who in real life are Polly's nephews, Nat and Alex's cousins, and thus Jesse's brothers and cousin. In addition, Jesse's real-life father, Polly's brother, and thus Nat and Alex's uncle reoccurs as the school principal. Jesse's sister and cousin have been added as recurring stars during the second season. They play Jesse's sisters named Tessy and Bessy who appear as the dancing girls in Alex's new music video.
In addition, Qaasim's real-life mother, the actress and singer-songwriter Toni Seawright, as well as his younger brother Kahlil (also an actor and musician) appear as themselves during the second season, while Seawright reprises her role in the third season. Thomas' real-life younger brother, John, also reoccurs as himself during the second season.
During a family interview in January 2008 by New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg, Nat notes the French bulldog E.T., who plays David Levi's dog in the show, belongs to the Draper-Wolff family in real life.
Post-production Editing Craig Cobb is the picture editor for the series; he was also the assistant editor for Sex and the City. Cobb worked with supervising sound editor Louis Bertini, who had been the editor for Sex and The City. Of the editing process, Bertini explains that editing the show was not much different from editing Sex and the City; they brought a similar "approach and constriction to the audio elements", although unlike Sex in the City, the show had a "larger cartoon element". However, Cobb considered the editing to be a challenge because he felt that a certain degree of unscripted "magic on set" existed that required more work. Because most of the children on the series are not professional actors—in addition to the music that was to be added—the editing process created a situation that was somewhat "messy". Nonetheless, Cobb believed the combination of factors created a "magic" of its own "and it's what makes this show really shine".
When an episode completed filming, Cobb edited on the Final Cut Pro application, which normally took four days to complete. Bertini—who spent the same amount of time editing—then converted unnecessary script and added sound effects. Cobb says, "The 16:9 SD workflow was the plan for the 2008 season, but that has changed. We're working in 4:3 SD with the ProRes 422 codec, so we're cutting in a broadcast-quality format that we'll later output without having to recapture all the footage."
Music
Nat and Alex sing, compose, and perform all of the show's music, with Nat's song "If That's Not Love" serving as the theme song. Their father contributes the underscore and supervises the music; he also produces it with Michael A. Levine. The series' music editor, John Davis coordinates the songs' musical numbers, and Amy Cervini and Russ Spiegel are the music instructors.
Plot
Pilot
The pilot was originally an independent film shot in mid-2004 depicting Nat and Alex Wolff when they were nine and six years old respectively, along with Nat's friends and the other band members Joshua Kaye, David Levi, Thomas Batuello, and Cooper Pillot. They film a documentary about their world-renowned band, The Silver Boulders, as they fracture due to Nat's song about a girl named Rosalina (Allie DiMeco). Later on, the band ends up adding Rosalina and Cole Hawkins, reuniting as The Naked Brothers Band.
Several celebrities either acknowledge their admiration for the band or appear in other supporting roles. In real life, they have either worked or are friends with the Draper-Wolff family. These special guests are Cindy Blackman, Ann Curry, Arsenio Hall, Ricki Lake, Cyndi Lauper, Julianne Moore, Brent Popolizio, Tony Shalhoub, Lauper's husband David Thornton, Uma Thurman, jazz singer Nancy Wilson, and the ensemble cast of Thirtysomething (particularly, Timothy Busfield, Draper, Mel Harris, Peter Horton, Melanie Mayron, Ken Olin, and Patricia Wettig).
It premiered as a television movie special on January 27, 2007.
Season 1: 2007