Secrets and techniques from the primary decade of the Drag Race Untucked

So they had the concept, now they had to sell it. The only problem? “Nobody took it seriously,” explained Barbato. Nobody but a small upstart network called Logo that was created specifically for the gay community. “Logo was the only network that was interested,” he admitted.

“And we were sure that drag was mainstream now in 2008,” added Campbell. “Part of our pitch would be Tootsie and all the movies and Mrs. Doubtfire and Boy georgeAnd whenever things like that are brought up, it’s always fascinating. And with all due respect to our buyers on other cable networks, we said, “Oh my god we love this, we love this team,” and we emailed, “We can’t, it’s still too nervous . ” “”

But Brian GradenThe then president for programming at MTV, VH1, Logo and CMT got it immediately and bought the place. “You know, the ideas were solid. The budget wasn’t that much at first,” Barbato said, and both he and Campbell agreed that this groundbreaking first season was more like the “blueprint” for the series than the full-blown thing .

Filmed in a tiny studio called Redemption Stages near Burbank Airport, north of Los Angeles, the control room was no bigger than a broom closet. “We were so close to the set that we couldn’t speak or laugh while we were filming because they could hear us on camera,” admitted Campbell.

“We incubated, we say, and it suffered a little because the budget was very low to begin with,” said Barbato. “But I think you got the idea straight away, and there are fans of the show who have been around since season one and they understood what it was about from the start.”