Abbi (Abbi Jacobson) and Ilana (Ilana Glazer) in Broad City are an eternally lovable best friend duo whose accurate portrayal of being young in New York makes the show endlessly entertaining. Not only are they endearing on screen, but their friendship in real life grounds the show in a refreshing sense of reality and epitomizes friendship goals. Abbi doesn't star in Ilana's upcoming series Time-Traveling Bong with Paul W. Downs, but her comedic genius is still very much present in the show: one of Time-Traveling Bong's funniest sketches was Abbi's idea.
In the new mini series for Comedy Central, Glazer and Downs play two stoners who travel back in time, and at one point they kidnap Michael Jackson only to later abandon him. During a panel for the show at the Tribeca Film Festival, Downs admitted Jacobson pitched the bit a long time ago. He went into more detail about the storyline during a phone conversation with Complex: "We kidnap the young Michael Jackson in the hopes that we save him from the childhood trauma that makes him that weirdo at Neverland Ranch."
Time-Traveling Bong writer Lucia Aniello also disclosed information about some sketches that didn't make it into the miniseries, like the one that involves Bill Clinton getting super stoned before his first date with Hillary.
It might be a bit weird at first to see Glazer without Jacobson in Time-Traveling Bong, but that should be remedied by the fact that Abbi's humor will be there in spirit. Downs assured a Complex reporter that, "Abbi very much has a voice in the show."
Downs went on to uphold their individual talents, too. "The alchemy of Abbi and Ilana is so special and unique, but Abbi and Ilana are independently so talented and so funny that I think it’s exciting for the world to see either of them do things with other people," he said.
