Solar Opposites and Koala Man take San Diego Comic Con
Justin Roiland talks big picture and small creators
You can find the full audio of our interviews with the cast and creators at the end of this article.
With the return of San Diego Comic Con, so comes the return of many announcements for shows, new and old, across all different platforms. Running the gamut of Comic Con’s vast media circuit are two Hulu properties, both tied to creator and producer, Justin Roiland.
Roiland, the cast and crew of Hulu’s favorite Schlorpian family from Solar Opposites, as well as creators for upcoming series, Koala Man, sat down to chat about their respective properties, and creating opportunities and space for creatives to get the job done.
When asked how Roiland, who chatted with us briefly on his upcoming video game, High on Life, manages to keep from ‘crossing streams’ with all the properties he’s managing to work on, he emphasized the people he works with. “I surround myself with amazing talented people… for Koala Man I got Benji, Dan, and Michael. That’s their thing, I’m very hands off with that show… [Hulu] believes in the show. It’s great. But in terms of the actual writing, and the moment to moment in the writers room, I’m very two-arm lengths away from it. I’m more of a fan of it. I love it… For Solar, it’s Danielle and Josh and Mike and our writers on that. I’m closer to that one obviously but still that show wouldn’t be as good as it is, like crossing streams, we have so many good ideas from other people that feed into that show.”
Solar Opposites, fresh off the heels of releasing its third season, details the lives of a family of aliens who have landed on Earth in hopes of colonizing it after the destruction of their own planet. Seasons 3 further explores the main cast of characters, voiced by Roiland himself, Thomas Middleditch, Mary Mack, and Sean Giambrone, and their growing acclimation, or lack thereof, with their new home on earth. Additionally, as one would expect from the Rick and Morty creators, the show adds a new storyline of the SilverCops, as well as continues to explore the fan favorite, the Wall, a society of shrunken people living in a terrarium that seemed to have started as a joke, but began to take a life of its own.
“For us it’s like we get to cosplay being drama writers. We’re like nerdy comedy writers that any prestigious drama would ever hire. But we get to do our own prestigious drama with tiny little people eating Peeps” writer and co-creator Mike Mcmahon jokes.
Another property Roiland’s name is attached to, Koala Man, is set to come out on Hulu soon as well. Creator and writer Michael Cusack has quite a few properties under his belt already, most notably Smiling Friends and YOLO: Crystal Fantasy, but Koala Man is setting up to be the Australian creators biggest project to date.
Koala Man follows a middle aged every man with a not so secret identity in his attempts to stop petty crime and clean up his small suburban town of Dapto. The titular hero, voiced by Cusack himself, will have to deal with juggling family life and ne’er-do-well townsmen such as Damo and Darren, characters of a youtube series Cusack created a decade ago that helped jump start his career.
Cusack, along with producers Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez, sat with us to talk about Koala Man, some casting surprises, and the creative freedoms they were given when writing the new comedy.
When asked about what creative liberties this new show was given, Samit praises being on Hulu’s platform by explaining, “It is exciting to not limit where the story can go and how it can be expressed. Sometimes in other writers’ rooms… you pitch something really funny and they say ‘oh that’s hilarious but we can never do that.’ That phrase was never uttered in the Koala Man writing room. There were times where we were like, ‘could we do that?’ and then Hulu was like ‘Sure. Sounds good.’ and we’re like ‘I can’t believe they let us do that.’ So it’s been amazing to be at Hulu where there’s nothing holding us back from telling the best stories we can think of.”
While Cusack started gaining recognition through his own stories and animation, it’s clear that working with Samit and Hernandez and the rest of the crew has helped elevate his ideas.
“Growing up as a huge animation nerd, I always loved how in The Simpsons Matt Groening was the leader of the arts and concept building but he really put his trust in the showrunners to bring a lot of their own energy and look what came out of that. I think it’s a huge experiment for me for collaboration and just seeing how that works. And what came out of it was something I could have never done on my own.”
While release date is still unknown, a big surprise announced at San Diego Comic Con was the recruitment of Australian superstar Hugh Jackman joining the cast for its 8 episode first season.
While we have to wait to dive into Koala Man, you can catch Solar Opposites season 3 on Hulu streaming now.
This interview was done in conjunction with Saturday Morning Cereal, Murphy’s Multiverse, and JVS Media & Productions.