Based on the underground comic The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, The Freak Brothers promises to be the newest animated stoner comedy hit. A majority of the cast and the producers sat down with IGN‘s Michael Swaim at this year’s NYCC to discuss the show, which will be coming soon to an unknown platform, hopefully in December 2020 or January 2021.
The cast members in attendance included Woody Harrelson, John Goodman, Pete Davidson, Tiffany Haddish, Adam DeVine, and Blake Anderson. The latter two also serve as producers. The team behind the show included Courtney Solomon, Alan Freedland, Alan Cohen, and Mark Canton.
Goodman was familiar with the comic creator, Gilbert Shelton ever since the ’60s, and started collecting the comic in the ’70s. He even showed off his collection on the call. He’d stay up late reading them, until the next day even. A connection with DeVine was made on The Righteous Gemstones set, with DeVine already on board as a producer. DeVine thought at the time that Goodman would make a good Fat Freddy.
In fact, Solomon and Canton noted that they got their dream cast right off the bat; it helped that most of the cast members were familiar with the comics already. Harrelson said he liked the comics, even if he wasn’t as much of an expert as Goodman. He also thought it was “ironic” that he wasn’t as much of a fan of them considering…well, everything about his persona.
Haddish also loves the comics, and she loves that the characters smoke weed and travel through time, and she really enjoys getting to play a cat. The producers noted that even though Fat Freddy’s Cat was originally male, they only ever thought of Haddish for the feline. Davidson loved the cast that was already attached, and even though he had never read the comics, he thought the premise was “awesome.” They also created characters for DeVine and Anderson.
As far as how the characters get from the 60s to our present day, the producers said there’s a device in place to help them get there, even though they weren’t very forthcoming on the details of that point. Solomon also reassured that the show will be very much in the spirit of the comics, being “no-holds-barred.”
The cast noted that there is a fair amount of improv, and that, due to the pandemic, they’ve mostly been recording in their closets. Canton noted that the future of the business right now is animation, with the others agreeing on that point, joking that Netflix from January to March will just be animation.
IGN released a minisode the next day, with a little preview being shown at the panel. You can check out the panel and the minisode below.
Miss any of The Beat’s NYCC ’20 coverage? Click here!
They know exactly what platform this will air on but they know there will be trouble. This is an animated series whose premise is that taking drugs is harmless fun. Organizations have spent decades fighting that concept and now there is a cartoon series which clearly says, “Drugs? No big deal.” Underground comics have been traditionally adults only. Unless this is on a pay platform like HBO MAX which has not been very successful, this will be accessible to most anyone.I watched the two samples. Clearly a lot of money has been spent on this but this could have a short life span. Anyone who knows anyone who has been into drugs knows that it is no joke. Drugs destroy lives. People will steal from their own family members to get drugs. Author Karl Edward Wagner’s life and career were destroyed by his addiction to drugs and alcohol. The Freak Brothers were a product of a time when underground comics minimized drug problems and treated them like it was all fun and games. It isn’t 1969 any more and this series will not be able to get around that. Hollywood may continue to make wrongheaded movies glamorizing gambling but even they don’t make movies glamorizing drug use. This show seems to have been made by people who are living inside a bubble.
Comments are closed.