Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s iconic open centered around Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” was a last-minute addition. For a show that was famous for its hilariously random cold opens, occasionally delivering the episode’s biggest laugh before the credits even roll, the Backstreet Boys tribute in season 5, episode 17 is seen by many to be the comedy’s best. In it, a police lineup of suspects sing “I Want It That Way” to help the sister of a murder victim determine the culprit. Jake, however, gets predictably carried away.
In a new oral history for GQ, Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode writer Jeff Topolski, director Jaffar Mahmood, and executive producer Luke Del Tredici pull back the curtain on how the cold open came together. It becomes clear in their comments, included below, how Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s “I Want It Way” was not the first choice for the cold open, and that the sequence itself was a last-minute addition in the development process. They also reveal some of the alternate choices, admitting that it would have been less exciting. Their quotes are below:
Luke Del Tredici, executive producer: I actually remember this pretty well. I was with Dan Goor, who created the show, and Jeff, and we were going through the rewrite of the episode, and it was just getting late in the day. As we were falling behind in the rewrite, Dan sent me over to the story room to push Pause on whatever they were doing and come up with a cold open for the episode. I went in there, and we just batted around ideas. Early in the show we’d done a lot of bits with a police lineup. And then we hadn’t done it for, like, three years. I had an idea of Jake trying to make a bunch of the perps sing a song for him. I think I originally pitched it as a Disney song, which would never have cleared. I believe my first pitch was “The Daughters of Triton,” the song from the animated Little Mermaid. Somebody—I really wish I knew who—someone else I know pitched the Backstreet Boys song.
Jaffar Mahmood, director: So I was like, holy s–t, this is gonna be really cool to direct. The most gut-wrenching part was that as soon as that finished, the line producer who is in charge of the money is like, “Guys, I hate to burst anyone’s bubbles, but I just want to warn you all that we don’t know if we can afford this song.”
Jeff Topolski, writer: There was a day that I spent looking up other songs, and all of the royalty-free songs are all really old, lame songs. It’s like “She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain When She Comes.” After that the producers were like, “Okay, we can make it work.” So that was a huge relief. We were moving very quickly. Our table read was on a Wednesday, and we started shooting on the following Monday.
How Popular The Backstreet Boys Cold Open Is (& Why?)
In the five years since the episode’s premiere, the official video of the Backstreet Boys cold open has over 36 million views on YouTube. For context, most other clips from the comedy max out at under a million. The cold open is helped by its own popularity, as once anything surpasses a certain threshold of views online, it gains a life of its own and attracts others to see what the fuss is all about. But beyond the meta explanation, there are reasons that relate to the show itself.
The scene works as its own thing, without requiring any knowledge of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It is evident in the scene that Andy Samberg’s Jake Peralta is not the most serious detective while the sister, played by Devin Sidell, is a nice contrast in her resolute grief. It comes back around in the end when said sister has to remind Jake why they’re there and has figured out who killed her brother, with Samberg’s beloved character snapping back to reality and admitting having forgotten that was the reason behind the line-up in the first place.
But the main reason it works does come down to the Backstreet Boys. The song goes back to a relatively recent time when many viewers were at least aware of the same hit songs, if not fans of the same music. That means Brooklyn Nine-Nine instantly gains some added bit of recognition from the audience, which wouldn’t have worked as well with whatever royalty-free choice the show could have gone with.
