Alex Yarde has seen the future of stop motion animation, and it is SuperMansion!
SuperMansion brings audiences a look at superheroes through the uniquely skewed lens of creators Matt Senreich and Zeb Wells, along with executive producers Seth Green and Bryan Cranston. It’s the first 22-minute stop-motion animated series from Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, creators of Robot Chicken, and the first animated series to debut on Crackle!
During the NYCC2015 pre-panel roundtable this question came up, “Why should viewers watch SuperMansion?” Robot Chicken and SuperMansion writer, producer, director and voice actor Tom Root had this to say:
“We’ve been having alot of fun on Robot Chicken for many seasons. Taking fantastic characters and finding what’s funny about the reality of those characters, if those characters existed for real what would be funny about their everyday lives? It’s one of our troupes that we’d go back to over and over and we find that endlessly funny. So getting to do recurring characters, especially big colorful comic book characters and appliyng that curiositty to thier every day lives for us it’s endlessly entertaining and we think if we find it entertaining the viewers will find it entertaining [too].”
The time I spent interviewing Tom was very cool. He gave myself and the other reporters insight into possible next steps for the show (Atlanteans! ’90’s Cable style anti heroes with ammo pouches everywhere) and the animation process at Stoopid Buddy Stoodios and was very funny! You should check out Tom Root’s full interview on my You Tube Channel .
Aging, irascible Titanium Rex (Bryan Cranston) finds himself playing mentor to a new crop of Millennial-aged heroes who have little interest in their noble profession. Much to Titanium Rex’s chagrin, they’re all thrown together to live and train in the SuperMansion so the young heroes may learn how to harness their super powers. However, being a totally dysfunctional group of super powerful misfits causing far more mayhem and destruction than they prevent, their latest disaster destroying a national monument, gets Titanium Rex hauled before Congress.
The team consists of a gravely voiced, egotistical, caped crusading rich kid Black Saturn (Tucker Gilmore). American Ranger (Keegan-Michael Key); think Captain America with all the WWII era racism, sexism & xenophobia still intact. Steroid abusing, sex addicted pink Hulk wannabe Brad (Tom Root). RoboBot a robot with an identity crisis who tries to convert to Judaism once he learns his creator was Jewish. Finally there is the sole female member Cooch (Heidi Gardner) a genetically altered feline/human hybrid who for some reason is doing a bad “Cookie” impersonation from the show Empire.
Robot Chicken fans will be quite familiar with the blazing pop culture references and blatantly inappropriate adult humor. The tone is equal opportunity offender and they go right up to the line with some of the jokes (you did just see the red band trailer haven’t you?) The richness of the story arcs that 22 minutes allows gives each actor the breathing room to bring their characters to life that isn’t possible for the traditionally 11 minute Robot Chicken show. Bravo for Crackle to go all in on what could be a must watch show for the relatively new streaming network. I’ve seen the first three episodes available now and I’ve attached Episode 1 “Groaner’s Wild” featuring Seth Green’s brilliant Joker send up “The Groner” an inept prop comic and Black Saturn’s self appointed nemesis. Let me know what you think!
New episodes of SuperMansion will be available every Thursday through Dec. 17 on Crackle.
at http://www.crackle.com/ and http://www.crackle.com/supermansion
All Art~ Crackle/Stoopid Buddy Stoodios