October 9th, 2022 
Jackson Murphy 
As part of New York Comic-Con 2022, I participated in roundtable interviews with the makers of three of Hulu’s big adult animated projects — the popular series “Solar Opposites”, upcoming series “Koala Man” and new special “The Paloni Show! Halloween Special!”
“Koala Man” premieres early next year. It’s about a dad named Kevin in an Australian suburb with a superhero alter ego — Koala Man. Creator Michael Cusack voices this character, and his son Liam. Hugh Jackman lends his voice to Kevin’s outgoing and outspoken boss, Big Greg.
Co-writer Dan Hernandez says the show depicts “A surreal version of Australia”. And over the eight episodes you’ll discover that “The stakes are high. There’s a great superhero story being told.” Co-writer Benji Samit admitted, “We look to The Simpsons as a guiding light. How do we create Australian Springfield?” Demi Lardner, the voice of Kevin’s daughter Alison, revealed she recorded a bit where, “They made me make Dingo sounds for half an hour. It ruined my voice. Wrecked my throat for the next two days.” I also asked creator Michael Cusack a couple questions:
Jackson Murphy: The first episode is very funny. Where did it all come from for you?
Michael Cusack: It started a few years ago. Marvel was huge, and I was never really a superhero person. I was wondering what an Australian superhero would be like. I thought that they would obviously have no superpowers. It would just be a middle-aged dad from a small town in Australia. There seemed to be some comedy about that. I did some drawings and a short animated cartoon, which slowly developed into what it is now, a full TV show.
JM: So the show premieres early next year. Where are you production-wise?
MC: We’re done.
JM: Wow.
MC: I guess we’re doing light, little post, post-stuff. But it’s pretty much done.
JM: So that’s gotta feel good, then.
MC: Oh it feels so good. It’s lasted so long. It feels like it’s gone on forever, so it’s really nice that it’s finally all wrapped-up. We’re super-proud of it.
“Solar Opposites” has just completed its third season, and Hulu just dropped a new Halloween special that includes a familiar character.
JM: You were able to use the phrase “The Great Pumpkin”.
Mike McMahan (Co-Creator): Turns out!
JM: Did you really have to look into that?
MM: I don’t know. I hope not.
Danielle Uhlarik (Executive Producer): We’ll find out after this interview!
MM: If we’re saying something funny, usually we can get away with it. Sometimes we’ll get a call from Disney IP being like, “What is this?” And we’re like, “You got us on that one. We’re just being idiots.” But with The Great Pumpkin, it’s like… all of our holiday specials are commenting on holiday specials. There’s only a couple big Halloween holiday specials that we’ve all seen a billion times, and it’s mostly “The Great Pumpkin”. So having The Great Pumpkin come into it, subverting what makes a Great Pumpkin special and then riding its corpse around to try to get out of the “Don’t Breathe” situation they’re in is classic Solar Opposites heartfelt holiday stuff.
DU: And we did get to call out Disney Standards & Practices in that episode, too.
MM: We did. We’ve had a lot of calls with Disney Standards & Practices. In fact, we had to go to a whole new Disney legal group called “Legacy”, that I didn’t even know existed. We were making fun of so much Disney IP that we had to go to new lawyers that only protect Disney IP. And they LOVE us. I wear my son’s Mickey Mouse hat when we’re on the Zoom. They have gotten over it, but Josh Bycel, the co-showrunner, is always like, “You’re gonna wear the hat, right?” — when we’re having truly disgusting “Do you HAVE to show that part of Mickey Mouse?” kind of conversations.
DU: They’ve been great.
And “The Paloni Show! Halloween Special!”, premiering October 17th, is a one-hour horror comedy extravaganza hosted by Leroy, Reggie and Cheruce Paloni in their neighborhood on Halloween night. They reference Hulu… a lot… and present a variety of shorts from many talented directors, featuring several different animation styles.
JM: What are the holiday specials that have always inspired you, or you thought about as you were making this?
Ben Bayouth (Executive Producer): The Garfield Halloween specials are a kind of an old-school call back but fun.
Zach Hadel (Voice of Reggie): I love weird animated TV Halloween specials, like the SpongeBob one and the South Park one. I was born in 1993, so by the time I was 15… I love The Simpsons and I respect it, but I missed Simpsons Mania. BUT that said, the Treehouse of Horrors are so culturally impactful I’ve seen all of them despite basically seeing no Simpsons. Comedy and horror, especially animated, I really love.
The funniest moment of the “Paloni” roundtable interview session came near the end. Time was almost up on our (pre-determined) 12-minute session with Bayouth and Hadel, when a fellow reporter asked, “How do you guys get away with making fun of Hulu so much?” At the very next moment, a Hulu PR person came over and said, “That’s the last question… not because of that.” We all burst out laughing. Hadel said, “He’s the head of Hulu, by the way.”
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