Stoopid Buddy Stoodios News: Reddit AMA Recap and Announcement of New Series “The Worst”

Let’s check in with the fellas…

Matt Senreich (a MUCH healthier Matt Senreich as it seems) and comic book legend Zeb Wells stopped by Reddit to do an AMA session where the guys answered all things SuperMansion which just kicked off its second season on Crackle. The guys answered a whole host of questions on building out the franchise and what we as fans can look forward to in the second season:

On how SuperMansion came about and the growth of the franchise

Matt-Zeb and I have been friends for a long time. I lured him into doing RC and after doing like 6 seasons together, we said, why don’t we make something that is original. Since Zeb’s background is writing comics, we thought making a show about the behind-the-scenes day-to-day lives of superheroes would be a fun way to go.

It’s a first season. It’s growing. Crackle seems to love us and we love them. We get to laugh with them when talking them through what we want to do. We also love that “Seinfeldian” viewpoint. Take the absurd and make it mundane is what I ALWAYS say to make it funny. Fans seem to be hearing about it more. Most animated shows take a few seasons to get heard of. Heck, look at Family Guy. hahaha

On building out the universe of SuperMansion

Zeb-It’s a long, tortuous process. Matt and I will spit ball big picture stuff with the writers room, then I’ll sit with the writers and we’ll break (outline) the episodes. Then writers go off and draft. Then we come back and rewrite, punch them up. The goal is to get different jokes from working with different writers, but it’s my job to give the show a unifying voice.

We give ourselves a bit more free reign with the villains. I still love it if they’re evocative of an archetype. But then we have characters like Robo-Dino (who was actually an early character design for Titanium Rex that our designer Huy Vu came up with at Matt’s request. We loved the design so much we had to use him. Then there are characters like Johnny Rabdo who isn’t based on anything and should have been a throwaway character but we all loved what Tony Cavalero did with him.

On how long it takes to produce stop-motion

Matt- Oof. Loaded question. If I use our stand alone Star Wars Special as a mark…it’s about 14-16 weeks. But we usually shoot multiple episodes at the same time to make it efficient. So it’s usually 15-16 months for 13 22-min episodes. Madness, huh?

On inspiration of the characters

Matt- They come from all over. We’re big comic nerds, so it starts there. We get archetypes from that. Then it’s turning them 90 degrees on the side. What makes them more human and different. I love our American Ranger…a guy who vanished in the 1940s shows back up today and really has to wrestle with the world as it’s different today. It’s human to see him see how the social aspect of our world is very different.

Zeb- I’m inspired by all the comics I read as a kid. Love the out-sized personalities and color palette of superheroes. When it comes to their personalities I look to people in my life I find charming or funny. I like genuine people with a skewed POV so I try to write people like that.

On how Zeb pitched the series

Zeb-I made an animatic of a scene with voices from a lot of my friends. Recorded them in my apartment. Pitched Mike Lazzo and he let us make an 11-Minute pilot. He didn’t pick it up but Scott Landsman at Sony saw it and put us in touch with Crackle. Crackle was down and the rest is history.

A couple of important bits to note is that Matt Senreich has said that he is definitely planning on SDCC and NYCC visits for this year and that season 9 of Robot Chicken is coming later this year along with The Walking Dead special. You can read more of the Reddit AMA session here.

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In related news, the studio behind SuperMansion/ Robot Chicken and other franchises has officially announced that they along with Toy manufacturer Super 7 will be producing a stop-motion animated series inspired by “The Worst” toy line aka “the worst bad guys ever” which include the likes of:

• Black Falcon – Undead Warlord of Doom
• Robot Reaper – Robotic Harbinger of Death
• X-2 the Unknown – Mysterious Shadow Assassin
• Gas Phantom – Ethereal Specter of Evil
• Batula – Bat Prince of Darkness
• Snake Tut – Serpent God of Destruction