Reddit AMA Recap: Mr. Pickles producers

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Recently, Will Carsola and Dave Stewart dropped by Reddit to do an AMA session, hopefully answering all questions having to do with their brand-new series on Adult Swim known as Mr. Pickles. The series just launched on September 21st, @ 11:30 pm ET/PT, and it already has people talking. Here are some notes from the session which includes what we can look forward to the rest of the way:

To kick off the AMA, Will took a question on how the inspiration for Mr. Pickles came about:

(Will)Our inspiration for the show originally was Lassie. At first we were going to set Mr. Pickles in the 50s or 60s like Lassie, but we wanted the town to have crazier characters, so we made it in modern times, and then the show became more of its own thing, and a little less like Lassie.

 

But, what was the most difficult part in making the series?

(Will) When we first were developing Mr. Pickles, the show was set in the 50’s. Dave and I hit a road block for a bit, because all the kinds of crazy characters we wanted in the show, didn’t work with the 50’s. But when we set it in modern times, the kinds of crazy characters we could have seemed endless.

After watching the first few episodes, you come to realize just how MUCH is going on in any given scene, especially when Mr. Pickles REALLY gets going. Seriously, he’s constantly suffocating people, fucking animals, and raising all sorts of hell. However, when you hear Will describe a scene that DIDN’T make it into the scene, you can still sense his pace of thinking and how machine gun quick it really is:

(Will) Well one of the things that we had wrote but never made it into an episode was a story about a hunchback named Victor who’s job is a cab driver but he just puts people on his back and walks them around. In that idea, he was giving Mr. Goodman a ride to work but he made a pit stop to his stone cottage in the woods where Mr. Goodman, still strapped to the Hunchback, had to watch the hunchback make love to his wife while a horse made love to the hunchback and a cat made love to the horse.

A show that fast, it can only work on a network like Adult Swim, and Dave agrees:

(Dave) Adult Swim is an awesome network to work for. They really have given us quite a bit of creative freedom, and we don’t get too many notes. We feel at home there with our style of comedy.

From the on set of Mr. Pickles, the series has featuring a number of animated shorts which are about as random and out of bounds as anything you’ve ever seen. So when asked if the producers were inspired by other ‘shows inside of shows’ like Itchy & Scratchy, Dave had this to say:

(Dave) No, but I did like that cartoon when I was younger. It’s really hard to pinpoint where our inspiration comes from. We find it in some many things. Usually I’m more inspired by things that I don’t like: Pop culture, racism, plastic surgery, that kind of thing. It’s better to make fun of that stuff and try and shed it in a new light, how absurd it all is.

You may remember from our interview with Dave and Will, that while the guys are coming to prominence as of late on the back of animation on both TripTank and Mr. Pickles, the guys really were not really inspired by animation at all and in fact they give out to more live-action fare:

(Will) We weren’t inspired by any animated show actually. Dave and I have been making live action short films for years. Every once in a while I would make some animations, but we did mostly live action. I’ve always drawn weird looking characters ever since I was a kid, I think Garbage Pail kids inspired me back then. As far as comedy, Mr. Show was an inspiration.

Dave goes on to note on the major differences in working in animation versus working in live-action:

(Dave) I enjoy both live action and animation. The advantage of animation is that we can keep adding layers of visual jokes throughout the many different stages of animation. With live action, what you film is what you got. But we miss filming, soon we’re going to film a couple things, another Pumpkin and Bubby video too.

However, when asked to compare their show to anything else on TV, you’d be hard pressed to come up with something.

(Will) Beyond our show having violent moments, I don’t think it is comparable. We’ve set up a different world through Old Town, where the show takes place. But, if I was to compare our show to another show I would say we’re more like Full House meets Hanging with Mr. Cooper. I’m a little hungover today. That was a real typo.

I’m guessing in this case Uncle Jesse would be the proverbial Mr. Pickles? To wrap up our coverage of the Reddit AMA session, Dave dropped a BOMB in announcing guest stars that are set to appear on Mr. Pickles. While noting that both him and Will love watching The Sheriff the most, Dave accentuates that by telling us ALL of the characters that the dynamic duo have voiced over the course of this season and prior works:

(Dave) We have both done over fifty voices for this season. A lot of characters die in each episode, and Will and I do a lot of those voices. I also do Linda, Floyd, one of the Deer Hunters, A Bully Kid, and several others. I also did the voice of Gary The Wheelchair for Trip Tank. Will and I have different ranges. Will does more of the deeper voices and I tend to do more of the high ones. We both take turns doing Mr. Pickles.

Cameos this season: Andy Daly, Amy Sedaris, John Ennis, John Waters, Frank Vincent, Iggy Pop, Dave Foley, Brett Gelman, Joey Lauren Adams, Tracy Morgan. We were really fortunate.

Yes, Dave Stewart and Will Carsola did a BUNCH of voices, and Dave even tells us the story about the opening theme song which features…you guessed it!

(Dave) Mark Rivers created the music, Will and I sang the vocals. I like metal. We’re friends with Municipal Waste, Iron Reagan, Lamb Of God, and Gwar (R.I.P Dave Brockie) and have worked them all in one form or another over the years. I listen to mostly blues these days and love Janis Joplin. I like all kinds of music.

Ironically enough, I think that Mr. Pickles will do for animated television what the band Venom has done for heavy music. They are going to be the series that everyone talks about but MAYBE too afraid to watch. For the rest of us crazy folk, Mr. Pickles airs Sunday Nights @ 11:30 pm ET/PT, check your local listings. Read the rest of the Reddit AMA here and check out our review of the premier episode and our exclusive interview with show producers Will Carsola and Dave Stewart here.