ComingSoon Senior Editor Spencer Legacy spoke with Aqua Teen Hunger Force creators Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis about the new season of the Adult Swim series. The duo spoke about reuniting with the voice cast and parodying A Quiet Place. Season 12 of the show is set to debut on Adult Swim on Sunday, November 26 at 11:30 pm ET/PT.
“Aqua Teen Hunger Force is back to make television watchable again, and to fill your empty, content-starved lives with a magical season 12,” reads the new season‘s synopsis. “Don’t call it a comeback! Even though by all accounts it seems to be just that. It’s a micro-itty-bitty-mini season, five brand new episodes of attention-whittling stupidity – but don’t worry, the laugh-per-episode density is far higher than anything else you willingly agree to place before your swollen, encrusted eyes.”
Spencer Legacy: With the seven-year gap between Season 11 and Plantasm, then now the new season, did you two find it easy to get back into the rhythm of the show, or did you have to get reacquainted with it?
Matt Maiellaro: Yeah, we’d forgotten totally about it. We didn’t remember any of the characters. [Laughs]. Or how to even do it. We had thrown away our computers and all of our writing software, so we had to hold car washes to get enough money to buy all that stuff back. Then we went to scriptwriting training, and we watched a lot of cartoons, and we got back into it. So yeah, it took a few, it took, took a while.
So that whole seven-year period was getting to that step again?
Matt Maiellaro: No, no, no. What happened was The Simpsons had called us and they needed seven years of our expertise to get their show into shape, so we spent seven years with them helping them out.
That explains why there’s such a rise in quality lately!
Matt Maiellaro: Yes, it does.
Dave, has the process of writing and making the show changed at all with this new season?
Dave Willis: Well, we do it all from our office home offices, so yes, it’s changed quite a bit. I think we didn’t have a deadly disease passing through the air last time we had made the show. So yeah, it’s weird. I see Matt every day, and yet, if I reach out to touch him, he’s not there!
Matt Maiellaro: [Laughs].
Dave Willis: We used to always end our writing sessions with just a deep embrace. Then we go our separate ways and now, you know …
Now you’re stuck with the Zoom window between you.
Dave Willis: Yeah. But, you know, what was cool was we made that movie. Like, the whole movie was made via Zoom. Everybody — and because we had such a shared history working on the show … how long did it take? I mean, less than a year from straight-up first day of, “What’s our idea going to be,” to sweetening it. It was like … what was it, Matt? A year?
Matt Maiellaro: Yeah, it was like a year. So we got through it pretty quickly. I think the longest part really was forming … well for the movie, forming the idea, and then just getting to that point. The script went pretty fast and everything else flowed as normal.
Dave Willis: That’s what’s great. It’s a small staff of people that do this, and even though we’re doing it with a different studio — Floyd County Productions this time around — it’s still some of the old school people, like Todd Redner, our animation director, started on our show at like episode seven or something. Like 130 something episodes ago. So it’s cool. Everybody kind of knows what to do and what the show’s about and everything. It’s awesome.
Speaking of the small team, what was it like to get back together with Carey Means and Dana Snyder for the movie and the show? What was that reunion like?
Matt Maiellaro: We had sort of been keeping in touch with them anyway, and Dana’s been really busy. Getting back into the groove, it just clicked. They just got right back into it. It was almost like we didn’t even take a break.
Dave Willis: And those guys do cons and stuff. I mean, that’s such a big part of their lives too, you know? They just go out there and that’s their world.
You’ve had so many different intro themes for the show. With these new episodes, what made you want to go back to the very first one for this comeback and do a riff on that?
Matt Maiellaro: Lack of budget. [Laughs]. We thought we were going to get a new theme song. We had big ideas for big players and [it] turns out we didn’t quite have the money for that. So Nick Ingkatanuwat went into all the master recordings from the first run of the season with Schoolly D and just did a big mishmash and had fun with it. We just told them to go crazy and we got what we got and we really like it.
Dave Willis: I think we kept changing the show … we were just bored, you know? We were just trying to do something different and this was kind of like coming back. It just felt a little bit like a tiny reboot to the original in a way. So I think it’s consistent with what we were doing in the content of the episodes too.
With Shaketopia, there’s a different art style for a bit of it. Was that the result of the new studio that you guys mentioned, or how did that come about?
Matt Maiellaro: No, that’s what we wanted to do with it. I mean, we hope another studio would’ve done the same thing, but those people are all really talented. All the studios here. We ended up with Floyd and they’re great. We really had fun watching that art come together.
Dave Willis: I should show you this painting. I’m going to show you this painting that the studio gave me. They gave them out to everybody who worked on the show.
Matt Maiellaro: I didn’t get one though.
Oh, that’s amazing! [Laughs.]
Matt Maiellaro: I can’t wait to get that. I’ll get Dave to sign it.
It’s just lost in the mail probably, right? They’ll send another one, right?
Matt Maiellaro: I doubt it.
Dave Willis: We have one for you, Matt. They did a screening and the audio was so blown out that you couldn’t understand what anyone was saying, but it looked dynamite,
The second episode is a riff on A Quiet Place. How, and when did the idea of parodying that specific movie come up?
Matt Maiellaro: Well, actually, A Quiet Place is a rip on that, because we had that idea first. While we were discussing that idea back at Skywalker, the people who ended up making A Quiet Place were sitting next to us having coffee. And yeah, they stole it.
Typical Hollywood nonsense.
Matt Maiellaro: Yeah. Stole it right out from under us. I don’t wanna keep riffing on that movie, but they did steal it from us.
I’ll make sure that everyone knows. The guests for this season are pretty stacked and one of them is Brian Cox. What was the process of getting him on the show and recording with him like?
Dave Willis: Well, when I saw an ad, which I’ll leave nameless, where I did hear the patriarch from Succession go, “Ba-da-ba-ba-baaa.” I thought. “Maybe we can get him.” Matt and I both loved his Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter and we were like, “Oh, let’s see. Never hurts to ask!” He was like, “How much time do I have?” He was great. He was awesome.
Between the Aquadonk Side Pieces and Plantasm and the new season, it really feels like Aqua Teen Hunger Force is coming back in full force. Are you guys down for more seasons and movies if the opportunity arises?
Dave Willis: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Matt Maiellaro: Yeah. We’re ready. Absolutely. We’re ready. The company needs money, the company needs money, they need the show. So it’s kind of a no-brainer.
Dave Willis: Not our choice. [Laughs]. We’re always available to make more Aqua Teen.
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