Andrew Law and Matt Murray are the Emmy-winning co-showrunners and executive producers of the new adult animated comedy series DANG!, about the young adult Dang siblings — Andrew, Eunice and Ruthie — navigating life in The Big Apple. DANG! premieres this Tuesday Sept. 8 on Netflix. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: Andrew, you created the show. You voice Andrew. How much of this series is inspired by your life — that you really wanted to showcase in an animated comedy?

Andrew Law: Well, it’s definitely based on me and my friends. I would say the character of Andrew is not exactly me, but I do share a lot of his same sort of characteristics, anxieties, stuff like that. A lot of people are surprised to hear that I actually am an only child. I actually don’t have siblings. So we ended up drawing on a lot of the experiences of our writers, including [Matt] Murray, who does have several siblings, to inform what the sibling dynamics would be in the show.

JM: Wow. So Matt, I love the camaraderie between Andrew, Eunice, and Ruthie. As I watch these first few episodes, that really comes through. How important was that for you and your real-life experience and all those stories, getting to that vibe feeling so good?

Matt Murray: That came very naturally to me, personally, as the middle child of four — three sisters and me. So a lot of that came from real life. I definitely am the Andrew of my family. So yeah, it was really fun.

JM: Nice. Andrew, did you always know you were gonna voice Andrew on the show?

AL: Absolutely not. (laughs) In fact, I was pretty reluctant to because I have gotten so comfortable as a writer. I actually came up performing. I did a lot of improv and sketch at UCB in New York many, many years ago. But since then I’ve really felt so much more comfortable behind the keyboard than I do in front of a camera or in a recording booth. But I was really encouraged by Matt and the other executive producers, Mike Schur and Alan Yang, to voice this character. Obviously he shares my name, but also they thought I would do a good job performing it. And in the end, I’m actually really glad that I put myself out there and I tried it because I learned so much from Stephanie Hsu and Poppy Liu [who voice Eunice and Ruthie]. They’re such talented and experienced voice actors, and I really ended up having a blast. Being in a recording booth is a lot less pressure than being on a set. So you try a lot of different things. You can mess up a lot of times. I certainly did. (laughs) But in the end… I feel like I was able to bring something to the character that might not have been there otherwise.

JM: You do a great job. So Matt, all three of these siblings are together in New York City, and this show really showcases the contemporary here and now of New York City and the workplace in New York City. What went into that research and all the details and making that atmosphere so authentic?

MM: Well, that’s very nice of you to say considering the show was written over three years ago. (laughs) So I’m glad to hear it feels contemporary. Most of our writers are very young and many if not all have lived in New York for at least a little bit. So we were really drawing from a lot of our writers’ real experiences. Andrew and I both lived in New York at one point. I haven’t lived there in a very long time. I’ll give credit to our writers on that one.

JM: And the three of them are also so well-versed in pop culture and entertainment, Andrew. How important was it to have that element? There’s a lotta stuff. The first episode is a very good pilot. And then the second episode really gets into all the cutaways and the pop culture, which is a lot of fun.

AL: It’s a very pop culture heavy show. There’s a lot of references. What’s tricky about that obviously in animation is that animation is a very long process. So while we do wanna have some pop culture references, it was really important for us to pick references that would be evergreen, considering sometimes animation takes three years from beginning to end. So we tried to pick things that we thought would still be funny and would stand the test of time.

JM: Matt, the comedic timing of these characters… Most of the frames of this show [have] three or four characters. There’s a lot of quick dialogue, so the timing has to be good. What went into that with these voice actors, including Andrew, as far as getting the comedic timing to be so good?

MM: That’s the luxury of animation, right? You can record people in the booth doing it any number of speeds, and then once you get into the… You do what’s called a radio play first, where you basically edit everything essentially to time, so you can crunch things down as fast as possible. We’ve tried to have a philosophy with the show of go as fast as we possibly can without being unintelligible. So that was very much intentional, try to just crunch it as quick as we can.

AL: Yeah. We’ve always described the show as, like, a machine gun of jokes. We wanted so many jokes per page that, if you were laughing at one, you might miss the next one. Editing is a huge, huge part of that, because the timing has to be so quick and fast in order for you to fit all those jokes in.

JM: And Matt, you also worked on “The Cleveland Show”. So what do you love about the animated comedy experience, as opposed to working in live-action?

MM: That was my only other animation job, and that job, at the time that I had it, I was very young. It was my, I think, third job ever, and I was pretty low on the totem pole. So I didn’t really get to be that involved in much of the visual development or the recording or editing or any of that. So this was a much different experience, working with Andrew and sort of figuring out what it’s gonna look like, how it’s gonna sound, who’s gonna cast, and all that stuff. So this was a much different experience.

JM: Andrew, one of the core themes of this show is that life is changing, and life-changing events are major for everybody. What were your goals with the arc of this season and that theme coming across?

AL: Well, I think that life can be scary. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world right now. Having a support system and a community is more important than ever. What is so important for me, both in the pilot and the finale, is that Ruthie, despite being a really strong, really accomplished person, is going through a huge life change and really needs the support of her siblings. And of course, she has a really fraught relationship with her siblings. They’re kind of, at first, really happy to see her fall flat on her face. But eventually, they do come around and try to support her, sometimes in good ways, sometimes in ways that are well-intended but not so good. But overall, they end up showing up for her in the end. That’s really what I wanted to convey with the show. Even though they can be really brutal to each other, at the end of the day, they really do care about each other.

JM: That care comes through. Matt, I feel like this is a show, because of the vibe you’ve created, it’s gonna be comfort viewing, especially for the 20-somethings, 30-somethings who are gonna watch this. Are those the kinds of comedies, whether in live-action or animation, that appeal to you, this kind of comfort viewing atmosphere?

MM: Yeah, very much so. The shows that Andrew and I have worked on, I would put in that category — shows like “The Good Place” or “Parks and Recreation” or “Silicon Valley”, or “Hacks” for Andrew. These characters can, at times, be awful and filthy and sort of depraved. But at the same time, they do also love each other and that always comes through at the end, hopefully.

JM: “DANG!” has a great ensemble. Any series growing up that maybe influenced this show?

AL: I grew up watching pretty much everything. I was sort of raised by TV. Obviously watched “The Simpsons”, “Futurama”, “South Park”, “Family Guy”. But also… I was a huge, huge fan of “NewsRadio” back in the day. For this show, we talked about “Broad City” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” as being influences. Shows that can be raunchy and fun but also have a lot of heart.

JM: The new season of “Sunny” is already wild.

MM: We definitely talked a lot about “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” when were developing the tone of the show — these people could be horrible to each other but still come back the next day. Growing up, “Seinfeld”, “NewsRadio”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”. Those were the touchpoints for us.