Quinta Brunson Of Abbott Elementary: From Meme To TV

Shortly after Quinta dropped this iconic 15-second sketch on Instagram, her life changed. She revealed in her memoir, She Memes Well, that her follower count skyrocketed after posting the video, and she was able to leave her day job at the Apple store for the second (and last) time to pursue comedy full-time — her original goal of moving to Los Angeles.

After three months of working in her residency, she interviewed for a longer-term position. “I have a vision for BuzzFeed Video,” she said in her interview, as retold in her memoir. “I see a world where these videos are serialized. Where we write characters and storylines that people will follow, much like they follow TV characters.” She got the job.

Her comedic timing, straightforward perspective, and infectious energy made her a fan favorite.

Quinta was booked, busy, and building up her show portfolio with these three series long before she graduated to working with ABC. All three shows had their own flair of Quinta’s style, and her different point-of-views of the world.

Up for Adoption was Quinta’s first venture into workplace comedy, and the show took on a mockumentary approach in the vein of The Office (which eventually carried into Abbott Elementary). Broke was a tribute to Black friendship, as well as her own penniless experiences as she came up in Los Angeles. And Quinta vs. Everything morphed her hot takes on just about every topic into three 3-minute sketches per episode.

You can watch another clip of her Laugh Factory set here. And if you’re craving even more of her stand-up, this one’s another of my favorite clips. 

It’s easy to see the ideas she brings up in her TED talk “I Like Myself, America and You Can’t Stop Me” drove her to eventually create Abbott Elementary — it’s a fun TV show, sure, but it also carries an important message about how we prioritize funding public education in the US.

It’s beautiful to see Quinta share what she’s learned so far in her journey up to that point and how quick she is to encourage other diverse voices to also share their perspectives with the world. Cool, so she’s a motivational speaker too. 

Lazor Wulf indulged in its trippy animation style and favored world-building with eccentric characters (laser-carrying wolves) over traditional plot in its two-season run. Quinta brought even more bite to Big Mouth as Misty’s spirited older cousin.

If there were ever any doubts about Quinta’s range as an actor, she put those to rest when she nailed her performances of an impressive range of characters in the first season of HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show. Her memorable roles include a modern-day Juliet whose loyalty to Cardi is compromised when she falls for a Nicki stan, as well as a lawyer who is too smitten with the all-Black lady courtroom she’s stepped in to take the trial seriously.

The series attracted a lot of well-deserved fanfare, and Quinta’s contributions created a lot of buzz for herself. She did not return for the show’s second season, understandably, since she shifted her focus to another project that she’d sold to ABC.

There’s a reason this show is resonating so well with audiences. Besides being funny and having a rockstar ensemble cast, the show packs a lot of heart and hope. Quinta revealed that the show is inspired by her mother’s experience as a public school teacher in Philadelphia and that the title of the series is in honor of her own sixth grade teacher.

Even though she’s admittedly not as optimistic as her character Janine, there’s a lot of Quinta in Abbott Elementary. Just like its creator, the series is real, relatable, and revolutionary. That’s why it works.