Now What!? Founder Brendan Burch Gets Animated About Politics

After a round of fundraising that took just four months, Now What!? is on a mission to create a series of animated shorts aimed at engaging young people to become active in politics. Loaded with critical voting issues, Now What!? released its first series of shorts on October 3 as America nears the crucial 2024 presidential election.

Stop It With the Voting, Fetus Monster, and Snubby the Friendly Gun each take an original and sometimes outlandish approach to critical issues such as voter influence, reproductive rights, and gun violence. With a team of diverse creators backed by the wisdom of founder Brendan Burch, Now What!? is essentially attempting to fill the shoes of Schoolhouse Rock, but with a modern twist. Burch, who has a long career in television animation production as CEO of L.A.-based Six Point Harness, is ready to inspire a new generation of informed voters. Now What!? targets voters 18 to 25 years old by using animation in an effort to raise awareness about the core issues that could determine the election. 

Bubbleblabber sat down with Burch to discuss the inspiration behind Now What!?, the challenge of giving Gen Z a voice, and his desire for Americans to hold our politicians accountable. 

Matthew Swigonski: The idea behind Now What!? is pretty unique. How did you come up with the concept and the themes that you wanted to explore?

Brendan Burch: I have always been sort of obsessed with politics. I don’t think there’s any mystery that we lean left even though we’re a non-partisan organization. But about a year ago, I was just like, ‘Man, what is wrong with Joe Biden and the Dems? Why can they not communicate their wins to people and young audiences?’ And then I was like, ‘What if we were to use animation to help them communicate that stuff?’ Then it sort of evolved from there.

Like the Adult Swim for politics. To make politics sort of interesting and entertaining enough that young people would pay more attention to it. Especially if they felt like they were being listened to. Making the issues a little more accessible, you know?

And I think for young people if they see that the system’s kind of fucked up, and that it’s broken, they’re just like, ‘Well, what does it even matter? Why vote?’ No, you do have agency. And if all of us voted, none of this shit would be happening. I was ready to throw a much wider net out over the issues. But after talking to the Get Out The Vote organizations about Gen Z, there are four things that they said are consistently key issues for that age group. And that is gun control, climate change, reproductive rights, and affordability.

I’m like, ‘Oh, okay. Let’s just stay focused on those moving forward. We’re in it for the long haul. I envision registering voters at Comic-Con and the Coast 2 Coast Festival. And then we’ll expand out to other issues like immigration or how politics affects you daily.

Matthew Swigonski: Can you describe the creative process of these animated shorts? Are you like, ‘Hey, go do your own thing’ or are you more hands-on in the development of ideas?

Brendan Burch: It’s very similar to how I’ve operated Six Point Harness. I sort of set the agenda that then I get really smart people to come and create. And so I called a bunch of creators and told them about what it was that I was looking to do and they just started pitching ideas to us.

We were pretty deliberate about the [shorts] that we started with. Like we kind of wanted to be a little bit more kind of noisy and honestly a little stupid. Wendy Willis and Matt Danner did a lot of the kind of hands-on and day-to-day development with these different creators. I mean, I’m always involved but I think the magic is letting people make what they want to make and kind of just giving them the resources to make them.

Matthew Swigonski: You talked about the four key issues that you wanted to bring up. Was there an off-limits topic that you wanted to stay away from?  

Brendan Burch: That’s a really good question. I think we wanted to stay away from identity politics and cultural politics. And the biggest reason for that is that I think that the right tends to use those issues to sort of divide us when we need to be thinking, in terms of our day-to-day lives. I really don’t want to use culture to divide people. That is kind of cynical and disgusting to me. I want to look for the things we have in common. We have a lot of common ground and it is a lot more appealing. 

Matthew Swigonski: What’s the most challenging aspect of creating engaging or compelling content for that 18 to 25-year-old demographic? 

Brendan Burch: I think the most challenging thing is raising money. Now What!? is a non-profit but the challenging thing is to sort of convince the people who control the money to try something different, to do something different. That has actually been way more challenging than I was expecting. Making the stuff is hard enough. I know it’s hard but it’s what we’re really good at. We’re good at the hardship. Also finding that balance and just making sure that we have a decent representation of voices.

And diversity of opinion is also really important. And that we are doing a lot of the production work with people of the generation we’re trying to appeal to so it just doesn’t feel like a bunch of Gen X or Millennials telling Gen Z what to do. We’re threading a lot of needles. Snubby was challenging. It was challenging and it still has some people scratching their heads.

Matthew Swigonski: That’s my favorite short by the way. 

Brendan Burch: Yeah, I want to keep doing that kind of stuff. Like, it’s provocative. People are pissed off that there’s the risk of you liking a gun by the end of a cartoon, but they’re kind of missing the whole point. This whole idea of ‘guns don’t kill people, bad guys kill people.’ Nobody wants these fucking guns at their schools. Nobody. And then for an entire party to just say, ‘Oh, we should just get better locks on the doors’ is insane to me. 

Matthew Swigonski: Is there a median of trying to develop content that is entertaining while also making sure that people know the message that you want to be delivered?

Brendan Burch: Yeah, and I’m sure we’ll get better at it over time. There were definitely some people on the board who didn’t like Snubby. That’s where I feel like my experience comes into play. Where it’s like ‘I hear what you’re saying, but I still think we should do X, Y, and Z or I still think that that joke will should pay off in this way.’ I want to push buttons and I want to be something that causes people to have a conversation. 

I grew up in a house where we didn’t really talk about religion or politics in public. But maybe we should have been talking about politics. I go knocking on doors every weekend for the Harris campaign. A lot of people have answered the door and just say, ‘I don’t want to fucking talk about politics.’ You might say ‘I’m not into politics!’ Well…  politics is into you. You can’t avoid this. Everything you do is politics whether you like it or not.

If all you do is cast a vote once or twice a year, then great. I was always very inspired by Barack Obama. I think he was very clear throughout his whole presidency. Democracy is what we make of it. You can’t elect a leader and just turn around and walk away. You have to keep them accountable. 

Yes, again I’m left-leaning but I am so sick of the ‘us against them’ shit that has emerged since Trump. Where it’s like, ‘If you don’t agree with me then fuck you, you’re an asshole.’ We gotta get back to a place where we’re fucking talking to each other again. Love them or hate them. 

Matthew Swigonski: You sort of touched on it, but you said that your family kind of shied away from talking about politics. When would you say you actually got the most interested in politics?

Brendan Burch: I guess it would have been around Obama because he was in some ways like my JFK. Our generation’s JFK. This incredibly compelling man who is saying all these things that I really connected with. But then I was frustrated that he got in there and was just like cynically knocked around and I remember just being so frustrated.

I was just like, ‘Wow, like this guy needs our help, this is crazy.’ I remember being angry at George W. Bush often but it really was Obama opening up his process to people. There are young politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who come to mind, and Jasmine Crockett… these really smart politicians. They’re really with it but they’re also letting you in on how shit works and like doing live streams. I feel like Obama kind of started that in some ways or he’d be like, ‘Well no, that’s not how this works.’ 

Matthew Swigonski: I guess a follow-up question to that would be, if a series like Now What!? was created back in your youth, what do you think the main talking points would have been? Do you think it would have gotten that generation more interested in politics? 

Brendan Burch: Oh yeah, that’s a good question. Well, we had Schoolhouse Rock. I mean, it was a little before my time, but a lot of people now know how a bill becomes a law. I guess 9/11 would have been really the biggest thing. 

We didn’t start talking about climate change until like 2004 or so. All these issues are relevant still but with issues like reproductive rights, I don’t think we ever would have thought that those were under threat of being taken away. 

Matthew Swigonski: An Inconvenient Truth from Al Gore was the first time I ever really focused on the issue and people still kind of shrug it off. 

Brendan Burch: He was a joke for a lot of people. They were like, ‘Oh, this guy is a little scam artist.’ It turns out he was pretty prophetic.

Matthew Swigonski: I mean now we have certain politicians that claim that people can control the weather and create hurricanes. It’s not sinking for everybody I guess. 

Brendan Burch: Oh, it’s crazy.

Matthew Swigonski: Do you have a vision for Now What!? phase two? Down the road, do you want to get larger or do you want to keep the same scope for the series? 

Brendan Burch: Oh, we want to get bigger. I definitely want to take on more education. We have a character that we’re gonna get a license for that I’m really excited about. I’m just gonna sort of teach civics lessons, but like in our own way, almost like Schoolhouse Rock. I want to keep making more shorts to expand on issues like immigration and maybe elder care and some of the things that are going to be relevant soon. 

I just want to kind of keep my foot on the gas. Right now, we’re a 501(c)(3), but a lot of these 501(c)(3)s have a (c)(4) arm. So that the 501(c)(4) could actually support specific legislation or candidates. I would like to open up a 501(c)(4) arm so that we could help Kamala Harris actually push through some legislation and do our part to sort of educate the public.

You can check out the Now What!? YouTube channel to watch the first three animated shorts.