Yes, Sabrina Carpenter was improvising in her A Nonsense Christmas special

Five minutes into Sabrina Carpenter’s A Nonsense Christmas, it’s clear that the new Netflix special will be deviating from tradition, even within the context of pop star-helmed holiday specials. “It’s the ho-ho-hoiest season of all,” she sings in her opening monologue, sprinkling amorous quips like snowflakes. The format itself might be familiar but Carpenter’s sly self-awareness adds much-needed spice to the fluff. “Everyone with a musical comedy special does them with celebrity guests,” she adds in one of a few fourth-wall-breaking moments, getting meta about the long lineage of specials she’s following. “And this is one of those.”

After a massive year of mainstream success, the “Espresso” singer’s Netflix holiday special, released December 6, is a succinct showcase of her abundant charisma. Amid the expected holiday standards, like a funky rendition of “This Christmas” with Tyla, there are raunchy jokes, horny Santa skits, and a rotating carousel of the lacy, holiday-themed lingerie-wear made famous by her Short ‘n Sweet tour. The special highlights Carpenter as a formidable triple-threat performer as well as a comedian, putting her toe-to-toe with some of the industry’s wittiest personalities including Megan Stalter, Quinta Brunson, and Kyle Mooney.

Per executive producers Michael D. Ratner and Simone Spira of OBB Media, that direction was intentional — and Carpenter’s idea. “[Sabrina] and [her sister] Sarah were pitching us [sketch] concepts before we even pitched the show to Netflix,” Spira says. Ahead, the duo takes The FADER into the making of A Nonsense Christmas and discusses its vintage variety holiday special inspirations and sketch-comedy slant.

The FADER: How did you guys get involved with the special, and what was the initial vision for the show?

MICHAEL D. RATNER: We approached [Carpenter] and said, “We want to create a holiday special with you.” We were huge fans of [her 2023 holiday EP] Fruitcake, and thought she was perfect for it. And that's where we started going back and forth. It was great because Netflix gave us a lot of freedom to make sure Sabrina's vision came to light.

SIMONE SPIRA: We knew we wanted to build a vintage variety holiday special. We'd been watching a lot of the old-school variety shows. You have [The Dean Martin Christmas Show], and when Frank Sinatra joined Dean Martin one year. Of course, there's Cher’s [holiday episode from The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour]. In our mind, we were envisioning that that would be Sabrina's essence for a variety holiday show. And it turned out that was her exact vision as well.

I was surprised by how heavy of a sketch-comedy spirit it had. Was that something Sabrina wanted emphasized? How did you guys work with her to bring the comedic side of the special alive?

SPIRA: I mean, she's hilarious. When you have somebody who's multi-talented like that, you want to utilize that, and it was her vision right out the gate to have comedy be involved. Her and Sarah were pitching us concepts before we even pitched [the special] to Netflix. They had early seeds of sketches they wanted and then the writers took that and ran with it once the show was up and running. [One writer was] Jimmy Fowlie, who is currently on SNL and wrote the Domingo sketch. And I mean, the table reads were some of the most fun parts of the whole show.

Which sketch was the biggest hit when you guys were doing table reads?

SPIRA: I think it could have been “Dating Santa.”

RATNER: “Brother-In-Law” was inherently funny at the gate because everyone has somebody in their life that they don't know who to get a present for. That's even how it came about. Sarah and Sabrina would just talk about their holiday traditions, and that's literally how we built the sketches and that the writers took those seeds of ideas and would represent them with a sketch form of their idea.

What was the decision behind having a live studio audience? Were there any challenges that came about with filming with a live audience?

SPIRA: I think for us again, it was back to that old-school variety special. If you watch Dean Martin or you watch Cher, they were in front of a live audience at a studio stage and there's so much energy there. And we wanted to create an energy both with the audience who's in the studio, but also people watching it. We want to have these fun watch parties and give that holiday community feel.

With the sketches, it's very SNL to do those sketches. We only did them once or twice in front of a live audience because we wanted to preserve the live feeling. I think the best example of that was in the “Dating Santa” sketch when Owen Thiele, one of the actors, accidentally shoots his nerf gun and it hits Meg [Stalter] and everyone starts laughing, but they keep going because we were doing this live [and] you have to roll with it.

I feel like when I was watching, I could tell a few lines were improvised. I think specifically, at the end of “Brother-In-Law” with Kyle Mooney.

SPIRA: And by the way, Sabrina [Carpenter] improvises everything back. And that's the same with all the “Nonsense” outro bits that you see throughout the show. She doesn't know what they're going to say. She's improvising back on all of those.

Were there any sketches or segments that got cut for time that you guys wish had made it in?

SPIRA: So not sure if you know this, but we shot [this] in two days right before Sabrina went to the VMAs and [started her] Short ‘n Sweet tour, so we didn't really have the luxury of time. What we shot is what's in the special.

RATNER: I think that part of the magic of the special is, is just how timely it is, the fact that she's having such a moment, and it's coming out around Christmas. It's authentic because she made Fruitcake last year and her fans wanted something like this. Even down to the Wicked reference that's in there, it's very timely. I think that there's a lot of noise in the world and this should just be fun. Sometimes just providing some levity and a good watch for people that's funny and heartwarming is much needed.

Production Companies: OBB Pictures, At Last Productions
Executive Producers: Sabrina Carpenter; Michael D. Ratner, Scott Ratner, Simone Spira, and Kfir Goldberg for OBB; Sarah Carpenter, Bill Perlman and Janelle Lopez Genzink
Director: Sam Wrench