The Surprising Real-Life Inspiration For The Good Place

During a 2018 interview with Marketplace, Schur revealed that he was inspired to create the show after witnessing "annoying behavior" while driving around LA and assigning those people different point values based on how annoying they were. He'd see things like "people cutting you off in traffic, and people throwing things on the ground and not picking up after themselves," Schur explained. "And I had this game I played with myself where I would just say, 'that's negative eight points.' Like if anyone was keeping score, what you did right there ... you just lost eight points."

Schur said this silly little game ended up inspiring him to create "The Good Place," based on a world where every action does have an actual point value and directly impacts where you end up in the afterlife. Eventually, he came up with the idea of a woman who has a very low point score ending up in the Good Place, which led to the creation of the show. Considering just how well-received "The Good Place" was during its four-season run on NBC, it's incredible to think the entire show might only exist because Schur was getting annoyed at people in traffic.