July 23rd, 2020 
Jackson Murphy 
Animation virtual panels for San Diego Comic-Con @HOME kicked-off today. All of the conversations were streamed on YouTube. These are some the highlights:
The new hand-drawn animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks was part of the core ST Comic-Con presentation. Lower Decks comes from creator, executive producer and showrunner Mike McMahan, who moderated this portion of the panel. “I’m so proud to be part of this Star Trek family,” McMahan said. LD (which debuts August 6th on CBS All Access) takes place in the year 2380 on the USS Cerritos.
McMahan debuted a clip from the first episode, featuring Ensign Brad Boimler (voiced by Jack Quaid) interacting with a drunk Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome). “She doesn’t always play by the rules even though she could because she’s good at things,” Newsome said. Several other cast members shared details on their characters, including Quaid. “Ensign Boimler… is the ultimate Starfleet nerd. He’s a complete fanboy for all the Captains and First Officers. He wants to be like them so bad that he is obsessed with rank and ranking up. He follows every Starfleet rule to a tee. He logs even when he’s not supposed to. He means so well.”
Noel Wells talks about Ensign Tendi: “She’s the fresh eyes… excited by everything. Even if there are weird things happening, she somehow turns it into this optimistic point of view.” Dawnn Lewis voices Captain Carol Freeman: “As the captain, I never feel confident, and I never feel in command. I always feel like I’m talking for talk’s sake, and people are just gonna do what they do anyway.” And Jerry O’Connell provides the voice of Commander Jack Ransom: “He has a pretty short fuse. I don’t think he’s the easiest person to work for. But he does deeply care about Starfleet. He just does and says things that I’m not sure we could get away with on other Star Trek franchises.” O’Connell and other cast members attempted to reveal their favorite moments of the season, but they were deemed spoilers, so the actors were censored at these specific times.
McMahan definitely had some goals for Lower Decks: “We tried to fit it in the canon, so it doesn’t break anything. But we tried to do something new with it at the same time. We try to keep it exciting, but we also try to keep all the ethical stuff that makes Star Trek “Star Trek” without breaking it.” Near the end of the panel, Wells mentioned that you don’t have to be a ST fan to get into Lower Decks. “If you’re into animation and like dark comedies, there’s plenty for everybody.” McMahan concluded by saying, “For people who’ve never seen Star Trek, it might be the first thing that makes people go: Wait… maybe I like Star Trek.”
Next Up: Solar Opposites. Jevon Phillips of the LA Times hosted this panel for the hit Hulu series that’s in production on Season 2. McMahan is also the co-creator of this series, along with Rick and Morty’s Justin Roiland. They joined EP Josh Bycel (who I interviewed earlier this year) and stars Thomas Middleditch, Sean Giambrone and Mary Mack.
But before any of them spoke, Phillips revealed an exclusive clip from the second season. Not all of the animation was completed on it yet. Korvo and Terry are hanging out in the living room, and all of a sudden, Yumyulack and Jesse are fighting. They’re on summer vacation from school, and it looks like they’re going to Summer Camp. When the clip ended, Bycel said, “I wish I could send my kids to Summer Camp right now.”
Giambrone, who also stars as Adam on ABC’s The Goldbergs, talked about voicing Yumyulack. “He’s got this passion to be popular, and I’ve certainly had my spells of feeling that passion. So I kind of just try to tap into that vein.” For Middleditch, “Terry is a departure from how I live my life. He’s naive, does whatever he wants. I’m an incredibly successful, top of my game actor. And there’s never any down time. There’s always work.” Everyone laughed. “But that departure from how I see the world is actually really fun.”
Bycel previewed Season 2. “We have a great episode where Terry is obsessed with dinner parties, and Korvo is terrible at dinner parties and says all the wrong things and doesn’t understand why Brooklyn is cool.” When asked about a Rick and Morty crossover with Solar Opposites, Roiland responded, “You gotta ask these giant lumbering mega corporations that have merged together like water droplets growing into an ocean-sized… whatever.” Since Rick and Morty is now owned by AT&T (according to Roiland), Mack asked, “Would it help if we all switch to AT&T cell phone plans?” Roiland thought it was a good idea, but Middleditch jumped in: “No can do! I’m a Verizon man! You should know that by now!” (He’s been their on-air spokesperson.)
Cartoon Network showed clips of upcoming episodes of some of their popular animated series. The Apple & Onion snippet featured the duo stealing a rooster from a lab as it was being tested for aging. The Craig of the Creek clip sees Craig reuniting with Sparkle Cadet. The Victor and Valentino gang goes camping in a soon-to-be-released episode. And Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart revealed a work in progress clip from the just-announced Season 2. Cartoon Network also debuted the trailer for Ben 10 Versus the Universe: The Movie… coming soon.
The FOX animated series Duncanville is gearing-up for Season 2, set to air next year. The team from the show revealed nearly four minutes of footage from the upcoming episode “Annie Oakie”, which features Annie (voiced by co-creator Amy Poehler) vying for a local award. Her competition: “Leslie, the annoyingly upbeat woman from the Parks Department.” Essentially, an animated version of Poehler’s Leslie Knope character from NBC’s Parks and Recreation makes a cameo appearance.
FOX had originally ordered 13 episodes of Duncanville, but only 11 aired this past TV season. So the majority of “Annie Oakie” has likely been completed, and the episode is just being saved to air during the second season. Co-creator Mike Scully said, “The writers room started about three weeks ago. So we’re just starting to write scripts now, and we have our first table read next week.”
Ty Burrell, the voice of Jack, said that finding out animation could still be produced during COVID-19 “was not the worst news to get.” Poehler added, “After it airs, it streams on Hulu. So it’s been really nice that people have been able to watch the whole season at once over and over again.”
Rashida Jones was asked to compare Duncanville and Parks and Rec: “The things that these shows have in common is that there’s a really great, deep bench of characters. You’re gonna have very dynamic interactions between the characters.” And for Poehler: “What’s fun about FOX is that every once in a while you can push it, and they’re really great about encouraging that sometimes and supporting that – just crossing the line a little bit. I feel like we successfully made a show that we wanted whole families to be able to watch. And yes, the parents can watch it, but the kids have to like it or else it’s lame.”
And “Bugs Bunny’s 80th Anniversary Extravaganza” panel was moderated by actress Yvette Nicole Brown. She unveiled the news of “Bugs Bunny’s 80th Anniversary Collection” from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment: “It’s 60 specially remastered classic Bugs Bunny cartoons, some of which you have never seen before.” It will be released on November 3rd.
“This is gonna be something that fans have wanted for a very long time,” said George Feltenstein. He’s the Senior VP of Theatrical Catalog Marketing for WB Home Ent. “It’s been many years since the company has put together a collection on Blu-ray disc dedicated to what I consider to be the most popular of all the Warner Bros. Cartoons stars. He’s right up there with Bette Davis and [Humphrey] Bogart in terms of who created the DNA of the studio’s history.”
“Bugs was not created by one individual. He was sort of the zeitgeist of the studio in some ways,” said fellow panelist and Animation Historian, Jerry Beck. Bugs’ first official appearance was in 1940’s “A Wild Hare”, delivering his signature catchphrase, “What’s Up, Doc?” to Elmer Fudd. “If you’re collecting [classic] Bugs Bunny, as you should be, on video… you’re gonna have literally most – 90% or more – of all the Bugs Bunny [shorts] when you get this new set.”
Look for coverage from Friday, Saturday & Sunday CC@HOME panels right here on Animation Scoop!
- INTERVIEW: “Inside Out 2” Director And Producer On Pixar Sequel - April 16, 2024
- INTERVIEW: “Puffin Rock And The New Friends” And 25 Years Of Cartoon Saloon - April 10, 2024
- INTERVIEW: “Chicken For Linda!” Directors On Annecy Winning Feature - April 9, 2024
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