“The Blubburbs” Exclusive: We Talk To The Producers Of The New go90 Series

We go unda da sea and pray not to drown.

Almost seven years ago, the producers of Cyanide & Happiness backed away from a deal that would have seen the web series sensation become a television series and all the big bucks that would’ve come with it. Unfortunately, the network wanted rights to the franchise that the producers didn’t want to give up because if the network had canceled the series, Explosm probably doesn’t happen and the rights to Cyanide & Happiness stay with Viacom allowing no chance for the show’s producers to shop it elsewhere or produce merchandise.

Fast forward to 2018, Comedy Central is still struggling to launch a new animated series despite strong efforts, and Cyanide & Happiness has about as rabid of a fan base that you’re going to find. The company routinely funds new initiatives like merchandise and video games via Kickstarter thereby never having to deal with “middlemen” looking to take a piece of the profit and the long form animated series eventually found a home on Seeso VRV/Select where it won critical acclaim from us.

 

 

Now, with any successful animated series, one of the things we, Bubbleblabber, look for are the “children”. This usually describes animated series that are derived from producers that have come from a successful franchise (like Cyanide & Happiness) and have gone on to produce something else. For Adventure Time it’s series like Steven Universe or OK KO and with The Simpsons, it’s intellectual properties like King of the Hill, Futurama, The Critic, and others. Explosm has a crazy chance at being that next “big” in the last year we’ve seen the likes of Purgatony and now The Blubburbs come by way of the Dallas-based studio that series creator Michael Rousselet more often than not calls home, “I met Rob, Dave, and Kris at Comic-Con several years ago and soon after they called me in to be part of the writers room for the shorts as well as the long form series.”

Mike is also co-founder of a website called 5secondfilms.com that he had launched in collaboration with producer Eric Sandoval after the duo met at USC and discovered they had similar sensibilities to their humor. Much to the chagrin of Sandoval, some of the cartoons that appeared on the website would sometimes draw comparisons to Cyanide & Happiness, “it’d be so unfair because by the time we would finish something, Explosm had done it like weeks prior, it was tough to keep up!”

]Don’t blame Eric for cartoons drawing some comparisons to Explosm content, you can blame Chris Allison aka co-founder of Toonhole.com and a producer on the upcoming TBS series Close Enough who prides himself “from the school of Tex Avery and Ren & Stimpy” as the background of his palette. Like Explosm, Toonhole is a great way for the up and coming producer and his colleagues to have fans discover his cartoons that would eventually find their way over to 5secondfilms, “when I first got an email to hang out with him, I looked at his stuff and thought that I was going to meet an Alan Moore-type crazy person because his artwork was so good but scary so I was terrified” says Rousselet, “we eventually became fast friends”.

Right at the nick of time as it was, because as Erik tells it, the guys were developing some ideas for potential production, “we were watching The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962), directed by Karel Zeman and we couldn’t help but laugh at the number of times the inside of a whale has been used in popular culture and thought that would make a great setting for an animated series.” Chris notes that the trio bonded over early episodes of The Simpsons and that a Springfield-like setting could offer limitless possibilities for ideas and as such The Blubburbs was born.

For those thinking that being inside a whale for an entire series could, in fact, be a hindrance, do not fear. The producers tell us they have dozens of ideas for future episodes, regardless if they are for the 10-minute variety or the 2-minute variety, “the jury is still out and is really up to the fans which they prefer” says Erik “it was actually go90’s idea to do both episode lengths”. Mike notes that one of the things he learned from working at Explosm is that ideas animated, usually seen as limitless possibilities, actually does have limits as a result of potentially providing laborious operations for animators. As a result, the key was for the guys to use a fixed setting and to help solve the puzzle of coming up with fresh punchlines and jokes, “it was actually Dave’s idea to have the whale be kidnapped by Sea World”.  

For what it’s worth, Rousselet doesn’t see the fixed setting at all as he notes that the whale itself has plenty of mazes, and as noted by way of characters inspired by Pinocchio, Captain Nemo, and Moby Dick, there are plenty of ways in which new characters could be introduced to the series, “the family dynamic that is built as a result of a fixed setting provides for limitless possibilities”.

If the score from our season review of The Blubburbs currently streaming on go90 is any indication, that may be good news for early fans of the franchise.

 

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity