SDCC 2018: Disenchantment Interview with Matt Groening John DiMaggio and Josh Weinstein
by Kevin Gaussoin, Editor-in-Chief
A few weeks ago at San Diego Comic-Con we got the opportunity to speak with some of the talent behind Netflix’s newest exclusive animated series Disenchantment: Creator, Writer, and Executive Producer Matt Groening (The Simpsons), Voice Actor John DiMaggio (Futurama), and Executive Producer Joshua Weinstein (Gravity Falls).
Disenchantment Season One debuts Friday, August 17, 2018 on Netflix!
[divider]
Q: How do you feel with this new show [Disenchantment on Netflix] a new way to watch TV?
Matt Groening: Well, working with Netflix has been a dream. In part because they’ve been enthusiastic about every single thing we’ve mentioned AND they’re equally enthusiastic when we change our minds and go the other way. It’s incredible. Both the idea of telling stories in a new way and having ten episodes in which to tell a story and having more time and no commercials.
Josh Weinstein: We could never tell this type of story on Fox or any regular network–just couldn’t. And also the wonderful thing too is because we don’t have commercials, you’re following the story, you’re not interrupted by a razor blade or a Chevy or a sofa.
MG: Selling sofas. AND we don’t have to–When you come back from a commercial you have to remind the audience and repeat yourselves. And we don’t have that.
JW: And that’s true with storytelling too. It’s such a sitcom format is that you reset at the end of every episode and we don’t do that because we’re telling one long story and there’s lots of individual stories. As a writer, you have to reset at the end and reset at the beginning, but we keep going and our characters keep going and growing and that’s a lot more fun for us to write.
MG: And also we have this amazing staff of writers and animators who are younger than us. And so they like some of the stuff we like but our references are generally a little older.
JW: This is very intentional. We’re old farts. And like half the writing staff are people like me who are fifty or older, and the other half is like thirty and under. And it was very intentional because (I have a story and I’ll be very quick about it) it’s that the young comedy writers–I worked on the show Gravity Falls and it was amazing and I was the old guy on it. Everyone else was in their twenties. And they’re so much funnier than I am and also so much better with storytelling and embracing emotions. And I think that there’s a younger set of writers, and animators too I think, who grew up on The Simpsons and shows like that. So they’re already more evolved than us. Like they had a base–like I grew up on Scooby-Doo, which sucks.
John DiMaggio (as Scooby): Yeah? How dare you!
JW: I mean it sucks in a good way. But so I feel like the younger writers and animators, they’ve evolved beyond us, so it really helps to have this combination of old guys who can go like “We you see Johnny Carson was this old guy who told jokes on TV…” and then they can tell us more…
MG: I do have to say whenever we start talking about The Three Stooges, the women writers get up and walk out of the room.
JW: That’s not an age thing.
MG: Yeah.
JD: I had to explain to someone the other day who Redd Foxx was and I was just like “How do you not know who Redd Foxx is? Redd Foxx, come on!”
Q: For the benefit of the transcribers and the staff of Scooby-Doo, can you introduce yourselves?
MG: I’m Matt Groening.
JW: I’m “John Smith”!
All: *laughs*
JW: Nah, I’m Josh Weinstein. Come at me, Scooby-Doo!
JD: I’m John DiMaggio and I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’tve been for you meddling kids.
*laughs*
Q: What is the secret to impress your fans that follow you for many years though different projects? How do you find the right stories to keep impressing this audience?
MG: The secret is, honestly, we try to make each other laugh. And the fun thing is that the writers are trying to make each other laugh when we’re writing the show. We try to do some designs that have some kind of wit and fun to them. And then our favorite thing is when we have our table read when we can bring the script for the first time and sit down with the actors and they perform it. And when you can make John DiMaggio laugh, at somebody else’s joke, it’s like it’s heaven.
JW: That was my goal on Futurama was to make you laugh.
MG: In fact, his laugh is so good, that we actually have a horse that gets possessed–a laughing horse that’s only his laugh. And it’s his real laugh.
JW: We discussed what would a laughing horse sound like and we just said “Let’s just go with John’s real laugh.”
*laughs*
JD: There’s another thing. As the actors, we’re just trying to impress the writers. They hand us this gold and we just gotta buff it, we gotta melt it, we gotta make it into statues you know? It’s just this beautiful mind meld when you get down to it, when you’re doing an animated show. So many parts have to fit together. When they do, it’s magic. It’s great. Futurama was a well-oiled machine, out of the gate. And this show [Disenchantment] was even that ten fold because of just the experience of everybody and Matt knowing how it works. And how to put it down so you can get out there and make it work right.
JW: I think that’s really true cause it feels like this show starts at the base Futurama family of you guys and writers and stuff and you bring more people into the family at rough draft two and people just really get along.
JD: Yeah, the familiarity is key and knowing–already having the idea of the jokes that are gonna come out how we all tell those jokes and how we’ve been telling those jokes in the past and how we keep, you know, it just sick…
JW: We’ll write, we’ll start writing to you guys and like “Well this will be how John would tell this joke.”
JD: Exactly.
JW: Or how Abby would say it.
JD: Exactly. We all start to service each other. Like, it’s really this great exchange. It’s really awesome.
Q: And I suppose you have more freedom for the jokes and to talk about other topics without any censoring at Netflix?
MG: There’s certainly no censorship at all. In fact, when we first originally talked about this, we though well maybe we’re gonna go a little more risqué, a little dirtier, and we wrote a few jokes that way and we said, “Nah, this doesn’t feel right.”
JW: There was actually an early-early draft of the script where a character said “shit.” And it just didn’t feel right. And I think there’s a thing about us being allowed to talk about more adult topics and things like that but there’s a smart way to do it as opposed to a crass way. And that’s something that we’ve learned along the way.
MG: Patton Oswalt has a great joke about how you can just say something really filthy on stage and that’s like okay, but if you make it clean filth–it’s so much creepier and funnier than regular straight-up filth. It’s kinda like when you’re teaching kids how to curse? You have to be like “Well, you can’t say the F-word. You’ve gotta come up with twenty other clean ways to say the F-word before you’ve earned the right to say the F-word.” And if you do that, creatively that kid is gonna come up with crazy stuff. And that’s what happens here…
JD: Wait wait wait, what school do you teach at? No, exactly. No, but really, like really they had the opportunity to be filthy, to throw all caution to the wind and they didn’t because they didn’t have to. Those are easy jokes. Those are easy cakewalk jokes to write. It’s much more sophisticated to take moments and… Yeah, sure, risqué joke? Sure. But take the long way. Take the long way to tell that joke. Matt’s always done that. That’s what makes it funny. You know? That’s what makes it work so well.
JW: It’s more fun to make the viewer put it together in their head.
JD: Yeah!
JW: Like and go, “That’s what’s going on” as opposed to just showing it. And then also kids–And this is the same on Simpsons and Futurama too, it’s like there are jokes that will go over kids’ heads just like I’m sure there were jokes in Bugs Bunny. That went way over my head. Or jokes about Adelai Stevenson or whatever.
JD: Yeah.
JW: Like it went over my head, but adults will get it. I think that we would wanna have it both ways, but this is more adult.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about the references that you said before with this clash of generations of young animators and yourself?
JD: You make it sound like we’re having a fight to the death! *laughs*
MG: No, it’s just different references. For instance, when I was younger, in the 1980s, I didn’t watch TV, so almost all television that references 1980s TV culture I don’t get because that decade I was going out and going to clubs. So there’s just that and I assume it goes on further and further… Right now there’s so much television that it’s impossible for everybody to watch, so I don’t think there’s a shared culture [anymore] because not everybody’s watching everything.
JW: There’s also a thing of the way characters speak. Because I’m from Generation X, and I tend to say things “suck.” I tend to use that word a lot but the younger writers, they’re a lot more enthusiastic and a lot of times, like with writing with Bean, our writers Jeny [Batten] and Em [?] are kind of like masters at writing dialog because they’re young and they really get her and so I think we count on the younger writers just to make sure we’re not coming across as old farts going like “Hey gang, how is it going?”
*laughs*
JW: So it just feels more real to count on the younger writers for things like that.
MG: For contemporary slang?
*laughs*
Q: How long was the concept in your mind before putting it down on paper?
MG: I started a sketchbook a long time ago. I dunno, five? eight? years ago? something like that. And I just wrote down every fantasy cliché and trope and reference. There are twenty-five different kinds of short-statured mythical creatures from dwarves, elves, ogres, trolls, nymphs, imps, leprechauns, munchkins…
JW: Pixie!
MG: On and on and on.
Q: Do you draw every day?
MG: I do! Here are our characters. I drew this at breakfast. This is princess Bean. Now, you would say, is she princess? Yes, you can tell by the crown, right? Okay. But this is not Cinderella. This is not Sleeping Beauty. This is not even Waking Beauty.
*laughs*
MG: She’s an unusual type. And we did that on purpose. We’re gonna do the opposite of what you expect. Although I think she’s beautiful, and I have a crush on her, I think she’s not what you expect.
This is Elfo. Elfo is based on the very first character I ever drew in this [Life In Hell/Simpsons/Futurama] style in the 5th grade. He looked almost exactly like that without the elf hat. When we drew him first, and we wanted him to have romantic feelings towards Bean and towards other charactersin the show but he looked like a little kid. and so that’s why we gave him sideburns so you could tell that…
JW: And that’s also why [Elfo] Nat Faxon’s voice is so great. Because in a typical cartoon, he’d be like [high voice] “Hi, I’m an elf!” And Nat has a really adult, almost deep voice that he makes a little higher for Elfo. But it’s really real. And that’s like another thing that’s cool.
MG: And this a character that I completely designed independently of the show. Obviously it’s in a completely different style. This is Luci, Bean’s personal demon. And I think this is going to be a breakout tattoo.
JW: Somebody! Somebody!
JD: Ohhhhh, somebody already did it.
JW: Somebody already did the first Disenchantment tattoo. A Woman in Columbia got a Luci.
MG: And [Luci] is played by Eric André from The Eric André Show, a total wild man, and he’s fantastic, he’s just great. Ah! And then we come to John DiMaggio as King Zög.
JD: (As King Zög): Whattaya, tryin’ to make a jerk outta me?
MG: So King Zög, in John’s King, I hear a little bit of Wallace Beery. I hear a little bit of Archie Bunker from All In The Family. Uhh…
JD: Eddie Barth from the Miller Lite television commercials. “Miller Lite, with a third less calories than your regular beer.” Remember that guy?
MG: Wow!
JD: He did a TON of commercials in the seventies and that guy was always just the quintessential New York voice.
JW: That’s what I love too, these, in a typical fantasy cartoon they would all have these grand English voices, but it’s like the king’s clearly from New Jersey and I like the mix of it.
JD: And that’s the thing, I mean, you know it’s important.
MG: And partly inspired by Red, the hapless victim of the Tube Bar prank phone call tapes which you can find online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9IKYNOA3D0&list=PLopySCGzRCrWJl4GHlbYS3gJXoz8h9ArT
We even quote him.
JD: Yeah.
MG: So it’s pretty good.
JD as Red: “Whattaya trying to make a jerk?” See, and me and Billy [West] would do impressions during Futurama we would do this. When the tapes weren’t rolling we would just go in and do these outtakes–but these weren’t outtakes–this band got hired to play in Jersey City in the seventies at this bar called Tube Bar. They got ripped off, so they prank phone called the owner of the place, Red…
JW: That’s the original prank calls to Moe are based on that…
JD: Exactly. So the Moe/Bart exchanges are kinda based on these phone calls, but they would call up and they would get this guy so riled up and then he would curse like a sailor… It’s the funniest thing. …So I would do that, [Billy West] would crack up, I would crack up, everybody would just start laughing. And I auditioned for the role and I had (Transitions to a British voice) some sort of proper king sort of thing: “Sir, I am King Zög.” You know… (back to normal voice) And so did that and I get the part and I’m like “Yay!” and they’re like “Listen, Matt wants to talk to you. Matt and Josh Want to talk to you before the table read.” And I was like “Okay, sure! Alright.” And I’m like, “Yeah, so what’s up?” and he’s like, “Just do Red. That’s it. Just do Red.” And I was like, “Ohhhhh… Yeahhhhh…” So that’s…
JW: You do use that fancy voice as the scrivener, though.
JD: I do, yes. Yes, that’s right, I was able to pull that one out and use it. But yeah, he’s (back to the Red voice) “Beanie, ah, come on, Bean.” Ya know, he’s just that guy. He’s just “Ehhh, just bring me a cow, willya?!” Ya know, just that kind of guy.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about creating Bean as a character and sort of how Abby interplayed with that creation?
JD: Girl power, hayyy!”
MG: Yeah, uh, Josh and I sat down and we laid out the world and we worked on this for a really long time and it became quite clear that Bean was the center of the show. And that Elfo, her elf companion, and Luci, her personal demon basically completed her. And she is the most interesting character that we came up with for a long time. Cause she had so many flaws and she’s still lovable.
JW: And also that the idea based in a real a lot of history, not England, obviously, where women princesses would grow up in a patriarchal kingdom and never be allowed to rule. Even though she’s clearly much more together and smarter than her younger half brother, she will never be able to rule. And so it’s a much more interesting conundrum for us. But what it also did is, that transposed into being her age: nineteen and twenty, cause a lot of this is about going into the world for the first time. And we poured a lot of B, there’s a lot of, friends that I had at when we were nineteen and twenty, female and male, like where we drank too much, and but we didn’t know what we were gonna do in life but we knew we didn’t, almost like a adults telling us what we were gonna do, so a lot of it is finding your way in the world. And especially as a woman in this world we think it’s more, so much more interesting stories to tell. That way that if we just went with a more…
MG: And Abby took our, what we considered very feminist lines and made us realize how mild we were. She kicked it into another level. I would say that’s true of all of our actors in this case because we have more time to play with in telling a story than a regular network television animated show that everybody ad libbed and we use some great ad libs including from John [DiMaggio]. Really good stuff.
JW: But yeah, we really count on these guys and like Abby to kick it up and like make it real, cause she’ll say like “I don’t know that Bean would say this, she might say it like that.” And it’s also inportant that we have a number of female writers as well. I’m a fat, fifty year old white guy, you know? And I’d like to think like, when we wrote for the Simpsons most of the writers identified with Lisa, even if we thought we were Bart, we were more like Lisa and now I’m like Homer. But like there’s only so much I can do even though I think I’m a sensitive guy. And it’s like that’s why we’re proud that we’ve got a number of awesome women on staff who also bring–and it’s not just for all the characters but that’s the most important to us too, when we were assembling the staff.
[divider]
Keep animated on Facebook and Twitter with ComicsOnline.com for more interviews, more convention coverage, and everything geek pop culture!
