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FOX’s popular Sunday night Animation Domination lineup gets a welcome addition this month, when the detective noir spoof Grimsburg settles into the regular 9:30 p.m. spot, following The Great North. The clever series follows the misadventures of disheveled Detective Marvin Flute (voiced by exec producer Jon Hamm) who returns to his hometown where everyone is quite eccentric and is hiding a strange secret. In addition to Hamm, the show features the voices of Alan Tudyk, Kevin Michael Richardson, Rachel Dratch, Erinn Hayes and Greg Chun.
Created by Catlan McClelland and Matthew Schlissel, Grimsburg is yet another new show produced by the team at Fox Entertainment-owned Bento Box Entertainment. Grimsburg’s showrunner and exec producer Chadd Gindin was kind enough to answer a few of our burning questions about the new toon:
Chadd Gindin: Thank you so much. You know, I’ve been working on this show for about three-and-a-half years now, and it all started when I got an email asking me to take a look at a very funny live-action script by Matt [Schlissel] and Cat [McClelland], which was a spoof of the Nordic noir dramas. FOX loved it, but they wanted to turn it into an animated show, so they wanted someone with animation experience to make it work.
So, we broadened it out and it became about this defective detective, Marvin Flute, who was sort of a mess, and is coming back to his hometown and trying to figure out his family. Then from there, we added as much as we could to make it worth being animated, like a cyborg partner or an imaginary friend who is [a] skeleton, or a chief who is part Sasquatch. Soon, we realized that the town became a character too, and we had to figure out how far we wanted to go with the curse that was put on it, why there were so many deaths in this town and why would we have a death every week. That was sort of the seed of everything, which was basically answering the question: How do we make Twin Peaks meet Springfield?
What are some of the qualities of this show that make it special to you?
I love the world that it’s set in, and I love the Airplane!-like writing, the way we are spoofing the genre. But at the same time, it has this main character and his relationship with his ex-wife and kid, things that we can really dig deep into. To me, it felt like it wasn’t going to be your typical Sunday night animation show about a family, which is great, but this was a little bit different; and you wouldn’t have to trod in these very deep footsteps that have already been set out in front of you, so that we could maybe go in a slightly different path that hasn’t been so worn out. I loved the idea of also working with Fox and animation, something that I’d been watching since I was so young, and [to] get a chance to run a show on Animation Domination and help develop a show that one day would be on a billboard with Homer and Bob and Peter was very exciting.
Let’s talk about the show’s visual and overall design a little bit.
Even though I worked as a writer on The Cleveland Show before, my responsibilities were somewhat limited; you’re just there to write jokes. But when you’re running a big show like this one, there’s a whole different can of worms that opens up. We had to decide from the beginning how everything was going to look. You can even see from the pictures online how much the designs changed.
Early on we had this handsome detective in a cool suit who was running around some of these cool crimes, but he’s a mess. He was just too good looking to be funny. I remember we’d go back and forth with the designers, and I was pushing this idea of his belly being bigger. We had this idea that here was a guy who was good looking at one time, but now things are falling apart. One of the designers made the great choice to do like a little triangle-shaped split in his shirt where you can see his belly, and that was just a great detail. We shortened his tie up so it would lay on top of his belly, and his hair is receding now, and we gave him long legs. We made his jacket bigger and bigger because he likes to be comfortable.
For Harmony, she has these slash marks over her eyes from being raised by bears. It made me realize that character design is so important in telling the backstory of each of the characters. When you see Summers, it’s pretty obvious that he’s a robot, but he’s got a big smile, so it seems that he’s OK with it. One detail I love about Stan is that we put a towel on him, and the designer put a little tag on it that every towel has. It’s those tiny details that make everything work.
One of the toughest challenges for every new show producer is the ridiculously large number of animated shows that are out there already. What is your take on that?
Oh absolutely. There are so many more shows now than we had compared to 10, 15 years ago when I was working on The Cleveland Show. As the audience, I think we’re spoiled, because if you don’t like a show, you can immediately find something else. Your particular sense of humor is represented somewhere in the many animated series that are currently available. I think there’s no way you could replicate the success of a show like The Simpsons these days. We all watched it, and it was so new and amazing. We all fell in love with it. My 10-year-old kid loves it and knows every episode.
So, all I can do is make something that makes me laugh. I’d love to say that I’m the perfect artist who only makes what makes him happy, and I don’t care what anyone says. But I do care what everyone says, but I really did my best to focus on what makes me laugh. It’s the speed that I like comedy [to be] and the type of humor I like, and the right ratio of heart to humor that I like. You can make a show according to the ratio that you like. It makes it both difficult and freeing at the same time.
To what degree was Jon Hamm involved as an exec producer? Did you write the show with him in mind as the voice of your detective?
We had the script done and we had to decide who to get to voice Marvin, and someone said Jon Hamm would be great. Once his name came up, we said, “Yes, that’s great. Can we get him?” Luckily one of our producers, Gail Berman, is good friends with Jon’s manager, and very quickly Jon was sent the script, and we got the word that he was interested and he wanted to sit down with us. So, we went into panic mode. I remember staying up, thinking of all the questions he might ask and how to answer them correctly to make him feel comfortable. We got to the Zoom meeting, and he says, “Quick, before we start, I want to tell you that I am doing this. I probably shouldn’t tell you right away, but I love it and I want to do it!” So, I said, “That’s great. I have nothing to discuss. Bye!”
Right from the start, he was not only on the board but he’d also help out by pitching things. Then we started to design, thinking about his voice. We started to think about what would happen to Jon if he let himself go. Then once he was involved, it was also easier to get other talent. Once the show started and started recording, he [was] so funny and [had] great stuff to offer, and he nails it every time. He has such a huge load to carry on his shoulders in every episode. Hopefully, in Season 10, we can tell other stories where the biggest load isn’t on him.”
You mentioned the movie Airplane! and The Naked Gun as some of your comedy influences. Let’s talk about some of your other big animation and overall artistic influences?
Oh yes, definitely those two movies and The Three Amigos were movies that left a huge impression on me. I started doing stand-up shows at open-mic nights when I was only 12 years old. So, I used to listen to stand-up comedy albums all the time. I did that until I was 18, and then I got into NYU and studied acting and writing there. Then, all through college, my friends and I were all about The Simpsons. It’s all we talked about, and we referenced all the lines back and forth to each other and did our impersonations of the characters. Then, of course, there was SNL and David Letterman and Steve Martin. Who doesn’t like them?
OK, before I let you go, tell me what you hope audiences will take away from Grimsburg?
I hope they take away that that this show is its own thing: It’s a story about this guy who’s a little bit messed up. He has to deal with his family issues, but he also has this workplace that he’s dealing with, and he’s living in this crazy town that’s got murders happening. We are trying to do something sort of different here, and if there is a mystery that’s being solved, sometimes it’s in the foreground and sometimes it’s in the background. We’re just trying to do something a little bit different. We feel like we’re really getting the hang of it as we got into our second episode — each season is only 13 episodes, so two seasons today is kind of like one season some years ago! I just hope people enjoy the ride.
Grimsburg premieres on FOX on Sunday, February 18 at 9:30 p.m.
