With the conclusion ofYOLO: Silver Destinyon [adult swim], creator Michael Cusack signs off on his second animated broadcast series. Collaborating with the network since his modern-cult-classic ‘Bushworld Adventures’Rick and Mortyparody and going on to co-create the hit animated series Smiling Friends with Zach Hadel,YOLOis a concentrated essence of Cusack’s surreal, crude, utterly Australian humor.
In a candid conversation withGameRant, Cusack andYOLOvoice talents Sarah Bishop and Todor Manojlovic discuss the creative process behind the show, what fans can expect in the upcoming series finale on March 5, and a glimpse into how things are going on the second season ofSmiling Friends.
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GameRant: So, Michael, you have two shows on [adult swim], one of which is about to have its big conclusion and the other of which is an ongoing hit. Coming up from doing more personal web animations to where you are now, how does it feel looking back on that journey?
Michael Cusack[creator ofYOLO]: It’s super satisfying! Especially, growing up as such a TV fan, it’s great to now be working on things that are y’know, Aussie enough and so authentic to what I grew up with, and to see that on TV in animation. And also the collaboration aspect of making things on TV. Y’know, when you’re making things for online, you’re just by yourself, and it can get pretty lonely. So that collaboration element is so strong there for TV stuff.
GR: Even though they’re full series, bothYOLOandSmiling Friendsare baked into your visual style that you’ve been doing since your web animation-only days. So much of that humor is visual, and is baked into the way expressions and dialogue are shown independent of what’s even happening in the overarching plot. How do you keep that visual humor on something on the collaborative scale that you need for TV?
MC: It was a bit of a challenge for season 1 onYOLO, working with a big team of people to still get that style wasn’t something I was really used to. What I did withYOLOwas also the fact that I left it up to the style, and the whole spirit and humor of the show is it being okay with being off-style and not needing to be perfect, that gave a sense of freedom to trust the animators on how they handled certain things. But also, throughout the whole process I oversaw the visuals with redlines, with drawing over characters, and going into storyboards, stuff like that for season 1 especially. For season 2, so much of the animation staff was returning that by that point they had essentially been trained in the show’s style, so that was helpful.
Todor Manojlovic[voice of Rachel, animator]: It was set by that time! And it was helpful because Cusack was working on so many things at that time. It wasn’t all up to the animators and boarders, but it was clear that by that time they were picking up what Cusack was putting down. It had gotten to a point where they could just run it past him, and he’d be able to give a thumbs up, and it could just go from there.
GR: In terms of the visuals and the writing,YOLO, andSmiling Friendsfor that matter, the humor of both is so visual and surreal, and so different from the very script-feeling vibe you get from, say, a FOX animated sitcom. How do you go about writing that kind of humor when it’s so sight based, and delivery based? Is it a more board-driven writing approach?
MC: I wouldn’t say it’s a board-driven show, but when writing we’ve got the visual aspects in mind. At least I know I do, in a boarding aspect. But to get it to have that visual, almost board-driven feel, we kind of treat boards as another major step in the writing process. It’s a show where I try not to have any flat angles on anything, like how can we use perspectives to keep things interesting. Not a board-driven show, but a process where boards are almost like a second step of writing. Me and Zach [Hadel, co-creator ofSmiling Friends] think about this all the time, where we never want to just have two characters talking with nothing interesting going on visually.
GR: The show is so comedy-based and episodic, but having seen the extended finale episode, there’s some character growth as well. How did you go about choosing what note you wanted the series to end on?
MC: So season 1, it wasn’t really about characterization. It was more about just attempting to make the most visually chaotic show, but season 2 was more like an attempt to characterize them more and make almost like a light serialization and characterize them a little more. You’ll see this in the finale episode, with this kind of motif we have of Rachel being intense, and darkness, and this sense of death, whereas Sarah is so much more light, and focused on nature, and all of these more peaceful elements, and just kind of having the contrasting atmospheres as part of the comedy and see where it went. We went with the flow of where it went, and having the spacing of three 11-minute episodes. But it’s a light serialization, and we still wanted it to be done in a way where the audience could still come in whenever and get the humor.
GR: And we also see some character growth with Lucas in these last episodes. He comes from a starting point of being this kind of fedora neckbeard archetype that’s been around for like ten years, but there’s a sense of humor and self-awareness to him and you really see that near the end.
MC: Lucas was a fun character, because of the contrast with him. The show is about two party girls, and Lucas is like the opposite of that. Getting into the characters on that is already fun.
GR: For all of the voice staff, how did you go about getting into your characters?
Sarah Bishop[voice of Sarah]: For mine, it was kind of like tapping into my most anxious self, a little bit. To be truthful it can take me a few takes to settle into it at the beginning of the recording sessions. The lines are so helpful to being able to parse out the specifics of Sarah’s character, that the dialogue itself has a sort of inflection and characterization that makes it work, like that kind of nervous anxious feel.
TM: I don’t feel like I can just “click in” to Rachel’s character, because if I clicked into Rachel’s character I feel like people around me wouldn’t like me very much. laughs I find myself kind of, at least I feel like I sound like Rachel at certain times. I could say something and think, “Aw geez, that’s something the character would say.” There’s a humor, but also something very natural about her. Her lines feel like things you’ve heard, or things you’d see, back in Australia where me and Cusack come from. That kind of humor around clubbing, and around the general lifestyle is such a big presence in the show, and we just wanted to do it justice and pay homage to it.
GR: The show is definitely so Australian. In your advice, for our readers, what is the best way to go about getting the specifics of an Australian accent down?
MC: Laughs What is it? The Razor Blades, thing, right? Have you guys heard that, Tom and Sarah?
SB: Kind of. Yeah, what I remember from when I was in acting school, was that Australians talk very much in the front of their mouths. We don’t want to open our mouths up too wide, or else we might get flies in our mouths. If you think about how you’d talk to avoid getting flies in your mouth, that’s kind of how Australians talk.
MC: That’s a good one, I haven’t heard that. Anyway, say ‘raise up lights.’
GR: Raise up lights?
MC: Yes, you’ve just said ‘razor blades’ in Australian, perfectly! laughs
GR: Nice. To round things off, is there anything you may say to our readers about how production of the second season ofSmiling Friendshas been going?
MC: Smiling Friends, I can’t say much except it’s going really well. We’re having a fun time doing it, we’re trying to make it better than season 1. I think it’s going to be better than season 1, actually!
TheYOLO: Silver Destinyseries finale premiered on the midnight of Monday, March 6, on [adult swim]. The finale is set to go up on HBO Max this week.
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