|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Formative Greek society and its fictional pantheon of gods, goddesses and monsters might seem like a curious arena for a new animated TV series. But this month, Dan Harmon, the man who gave us Community and Rick and Morty, is traveling back in time to channel the ancient age of Greek civilization with their new FOX series, Krapopolis.
Kicking off its 13-episode debut season after FOX’s NFL doubleheader broadcast on Sunday, September 24, Krapopolis is set roughly 5,000 years ago during the primitive Bronze Age and chronicles the lives of a dysfunctional family of flawed humans, lofty deities and beastly creatures trying to keep order in one of the Earth’s first cities without strangling each other.
The stellar main voice cast includes Hannah Waddingham (Deliria), Richard Ayoade (Tyrannis), Matt Berry (Shlub), Pam Murphy (Stupendous) and Duncan Trussell (Hippocampus). Guest stars appearing this season are Ben Stiller, Joel McHale, Susan Sarandon, Dave Franco and Chris Hardwick.
Popular Gods and Monsters
The buzz around this new show, spawned from the twisted minds of Harmon, executive producer Steve Levy and supervising director Pete Michels, is quite high, as evidenced by a sneak peek screening at San Diego Comic-Con in July that was forced to turn away more than 500 disappointed fans.
The genesis of Krapopolis’ hilarious chaos occurred five years ago while FOX was undergoing a regime change and they were shifting personnel around. Discussions arose concerning who they’d like to work with in the near future and Rick and Morty’s crew came up.
“They wanted to try moving in a different direction in animation and were tired of the same old development cycles,” Levy tells Animation Magazine. “Fortunately, we were on their list to meet with [FOX Chief] Michael Thorn, who had worked with Dan 10 or 15 years ago developing a project. He always enjoyed working with Dan and thought he was brilliant.”
“So, he brought us in and we all had a very holistic conversation about how we could work together,” says Levy, who has two Emmy nominations for his work on Rick and Morty. “Then, they made us an offer for an exclusive primetime animation deal. Out of that we started development with FOX and we had four or five ideas we went in with. Michael was the one who said, ‘Dan — Way back when, you’d pitched me this crazy idea for a show about people in ancient Greece. Would you ever be willing to unearth that dinosaur of a project and figure out a way to make it work for FOX Animation?’”
‘Playing in ancient Greece and mythology was always something Dan [Harmon] wanted to do so badly, but just couldn’t figure it out. He’d sold multiple projects through the years taking place in ancient Greece, but nothing ever took foothold.’
— Executive producer Steve Levy
According to Levy, Dan Harmon has always been mildly obsessed with Greek mythology and the teachings of famed author Joseph Campbell and his story structure models. “Campbell and his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, is all derivative in studying mythology,” says Levy. “Playing in ancient Greece and mythology was always something Dan wanted to do so badly, but just couldn’t figure it out. He’d sold multiple projects through the years taking place in ancient Greece, but nothing ever took foothold.”
Besides an old Jay Ward segment of Peabody’s Improbable History and the 2020 Netflix adult toon Blood of Zeus, few animated series have explored the rich world of Greek history. The element that attracted the Krapopolis team most was that these Greek legends and lore are universal. It may not be a religion that people regularly subscribe to anymore (not that we know of!), but it’s certainly one that’s still studied internationally by scholars, historians and artists.
“It’s everywhere,” Levy adds. “It’s referenced casually in regular television or books. There are plays still based on ancient Greek mythology or are contemporary tellings of old myths. Something that’s important to us as creatives is focusing on character and humanity. And I think you see that a lot in Rick and Morty and is the reason why that show is so successful.”
He adds, “Even though we go to crazy places much like Krapopolis with all the gods and monsters, there’s still that humanity that grounds us. It’s entirely relatable whether it’s thousands of years ago or today. People are still people and they’re still going to be petty or selfish or still trying to make the world a better place. We just felt like it was a very evergreen playground to do a lot of cool commentary on contemporary times through the ancient Greek myth.”
Another Toon Veteran
Supervising director Pete Michels (Family Guy, The Simpsons, Inside Job) had collaborated with Dan Harmon before on Rick and Morty, so he was intimately familiar with his work and has always been a great admirer.
“I’m also a history buff and when they said it was ancient Greece and it’s a historical comedy, I told them I’m on board,” Michels recalls. “I’m always watching archaeology shows and reading archaeology books. I think it’s ripe for storytelling and it fits perfectly with animation. Everybody knows about Zeus and Athena from studying mythology in high school. Doing a modern spin and giving them a certain personality that we’re familiar with today is fun. I mean they’re all pretty self-centered and narcissistic, and they have all these weird hang-ups.”
Being that Rick and Morty is untethered by traditional network television restrictions airing on cable’s Adult Swim, there were subtle content guidelines and restrictions for Krapopolis.
“It’s funny because both shows are TV-14,” Levy explains. “You’d think that Rick and Morty is TV-MA, but it’s actually not. The difference is Adult Swim is cable and FOX is network. So, there’s a bit more restriction, and also Rick and Morty airs past a certain hour, whereas Krapopolis is airing in primetime.”
“We certainly wrote a lot of stuff that S&P and FOX had to say, ‘Ohhh, I don’t know,’” notes Levy. “We absolutely can’t show nudity or say certain words. But they don’t want us to sacrifice any joke or creative endeavor because they’re having to tell us not to do these things. They find a way to work together to make it palatable for both sides so that no jokes are lost. Which is great because we’re playing in an incredibly violent world where incest existed more prevalently and all these crazy things. We want to be true to what the mythology was telling us and not shy away from any of the unfortunate taboos of the time. To shine a light on them and show the world how far we’ve come, or how we’ve not come. Not very far at all, as a people.”
As supervising director and bona fide ringmaster of the entire Krapopolis production, Michels and his creative unit were dedicated to delivering a certain unique animation style and tone.
‘We knew we wanted to make it look different than other shows on FOX. Since it was a Dan Harmon show we didn’t want it compared to Rick and Morty. We wanted to have textured backgrounds but also wanted to have a shorthand.’
— Supervising director Peter Michels
“We knew we wanted to make it look different than other shows on FOX,” he reveals. “Since it was a Dan Harmon show we didn’t want it compared to Rick and Morty. We wanted to have textured backgrounds, but also wanted to have a shorthand. Like with The Simpsons and Family Guy it’s a little bit more flat color. It takes less time to do but we wanted something easy like that without getting too crazy. The look of Disenchantment and Adventure Time was something we all liked.”
“For the characters themselves, since it was an adult show, you don’t want to make it too cartoony or round and bouncy. We wanted it to be more like a sitcom; more like these are real characters and real existing people. The animation style is not very squashed and stretched. Kind of like what we did with The Simpsons Halloween shows where you can take liberties with the characters and morph them and change them and do different things with them.”
Concerning the actual animation duties, season one is being done by Saerom and NE4U, two acclaimed animation studios in Seoul, South Korea.
“It’s hand drawn. Even though we’re using Storyboard Pro for storyboards and Photoshop for the background and character designs, it’s being animated in Harmony,” Michels says. “They’re not rigged 2D characters. They’re all being drawn by hand. It’s not the same studio that Rick and Morty are using in Vancouver. Title sequences are done by Dublin, Ireland animators and we also had Toon City in the Philippines do an episode. So, we’re kind of all over the place.
He adds, “Animation is tedious in its details — looking for those little moments, making sure the visual gags are playing. Because you can easily lose a gag if you’re not staging it right or timing it right. We do have a great team of board artists, designers and editors and we make sure everybody is on the same page and up-to-date with the newest changes.”
Levy says he’s very pleased with all the support the show has received from FOX. “Their belief and passion in Krapopolis led to them pushing hard for the show to get one of the best time slots, which obviously comes after Sunday night football,” he notes. “So, for Krapopolis to air after the NFL is a huge honor that says so much to us as creators. Our network really believes in this show. That gives us wind beneath our wings.”
Krapopolis premieres September 24 on FOX.
