NBC's 'Stumble' shoots scene at Krisch's, famed Massapequa ice cream restaurant

A new NBC sitcom created by two siblings originally from Seaford shot part of an episode in Massapequa on Tuesday, at the more than 100-year-old Krisch’s Restaurant & Ice Cream Parlour.

After a prep day Monday, the shoot for the mockumentary series "Stumble" — about the motley cheer squad at Texas' fictional Heådltston State Junior College — took place Tuesday, with the restaurant closed and used as a holding area. The exterior scene took place "on the corner of Central and Grand Avenue, right in the middle of the intersection, which is the Krisch's intersection," said Scott Cackett, 55, of Long Beach, who has owned Krisch's for six years.

"They hung a fake traffic light in the middle," he continued, describing the scene. "They had cheerleaders that they were driving in a big $700,000 Bentley truck with a big long [flatbed] trailer. So they pretended like they were in this traffic jam, and then all the cheerleaders jumped out and they do a performance [on the flatbed] and then they go over to all the cars in the traffic jam. It was pretty cool."

As well, "They used the front of Krisch's," Cackett said, "but they changed it to say Heådltston — they put up a mural that was removable and they're going to [use special effects to take] the name Krisch’s out and have it be Heådltston Ice Cream Parlor."

"Stumble," which airs Fridays, stars Jenn Lyon as Courteney Potter, a disgraced former head coach at Sammy Davis Sr. Junior College now trying to redeem herself at Heådltston, while her old assistant (recurring guest Kristin Chenoweth), who took her place, is now her heated rival. Former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Taran Killam plays Courteney’s husband, Boon E. Potter, football coach at Sammy Davis Sr.

Playing her squad are Jarrett Austin Brown, Arianna Davis, Taylor Dunbar, Georgie Murphy and Ryan Pinkston, with Anissa Borrego as a cheerleader torn between the two cheer coaches. Recent Hofstra University graduates Mercedes Beck, of Patchogue, and Jonathan Evers, of Coram, and current student Madison Hughes, of New Jersey, are background cheer performers throughout the 13 episodes scheduled so far.

Tony and Emmy Award winner Chenoweth, who's now starring in Broadway's "The Queen of Versailles," was not there for the shoot, Cackett said, disappointing one of his employees who is a fan. But the show’s locations person took a copy of that staffer’s Playbill magazine for the star to sign, he said.

"Stumble" premiered Nov. 7 and films primarily in Atlanta. It was created by Seaford High School alumni Jeff Astrof (’84) and Liz Astrof (’88) — the latter of whom, after serving as an executive producer on shows including "The Conners," "2 Broke Girls" and "The King of Queens," created the 2022 Fox sitcom "Pivoting," which was set, but not filmed, on Long Island.

Local landmark Krisch's was founded in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in 1920, and closed during the Depression before reopening in Hollis, Queens, in 1934 and settling in Massapequa in 1955. "Law & Order" producer Dick Wolf’s CBS series "FBI" filmed there in March 2019, and the shop and its giant Kitchen Sink ice cream concoction appeared in a February 2022 episode of the Cooking Channel’s "Man v. Food."

The scene shot Tuesday will be in the episode “God Bless Heådltston,” which will be airing at the end of January, an NBC representative said.