Hands down, my favorite moment to come out of this interview with Brian Wysol, creator of Adult Swim's new twisted comedy series Hot Streets, was discovering that Justin Roiland of Rick and Morty fame once told him that he might have gone too far with one of his jokes. That's pretty impressive. To find out just what Roiland was talking about, you'll have to tune into the premiere of Hot Streets on Adult Swim this Sunday, January 14th at midnight ET/PT. But in the meantime, you can read more about the show in my chat with Wysol and guest star (and all around hilarious talent) Randall Park.
Hot Streets centers around FBI Agent Mark Branski (JD Ryzner), his partner Donald French (Scott Chernoff), his niece Jen Sanders (Chelsea Kane), and her dog (voiced by Roiland), who investigate supernatural phenomena; Park guest stars as Donovan Kim and Ming-Na Wen stars as lead agent Soo Park. It's pretty nuts, but if you understand Wysol's earlier work, things start to get a little clearer. We talked about that and much more in the following interview.
What was the initial pitch for Hot Streets?
Brian Wysol: I pitched it as two FBI detectives investigating the supernatural, and then we get the aid of his niece and her dog. It's basically a kind of a riff on X-Files and Scooby-Doo! where you have a group of characters investigating a mystery, sometimes they separate and then it comes together at the end. First and foremost, it's an adventure show, so every single episode will take place in a new location.
For example, in the first episode, we've got more in the city with Donovan Kim and a little bit of Egypt, then next episode we go to Snake Island, the next episode, outer space. Every episode kind of bounces around.
How did the idea come about?
Wysol: I was a part of this film community called Channel 101 where you would make these little short films and the audience would vote on which mini-TV show they'd like to come back the next month. It's actually a part of the same community that Randall Park came from; he used to also make his own content for that film festival. I had made two particular shorts: One was called "We Solve the Crime" and the other one was "Hot Cross Buns." When I made those two shorts, they were the favorites of mine, so to create a show, I merged the sensibilities of those two shorts and that's kind of the genesis of the show.
What was your story-breaking process like on Hot Streets, a world where anything seems possible?
Wysol: There were no limits. We really wanted to make each episode as big as possible. It's difficult in a 15-minute time constraint to do this, but yeah the impetus was to make it an adventure show so that you don't really know what you're going to expect week to week. So that was definitely something when we were breaking them, like, "What can we do that's totally different than the last episode we made?"
How did your prior work experience on things like Rick and Morty lend itself to this process?
Wysol: Working at Rick and Morty, that was my first professional writing job and I learned how to break stories from having worked at Channel 101 and having worked at Rick and Morty. I used a lot of the techniques that they use. Dan Harmon deconstructed Joseph Campbell's monomyth and turned it into a story circle, which is just a way to structure the episode thematically and make sure you hit the characters and the characters' stories. Having worked with Rick and Morty definitely informs the way I approach breaking stories.
Randall, what was appealing about Hot Streets for you?
Randall Park: Like Brian said, we were both a part of this community of Channel 101, and I remember, when I was at the height of my involvement of that community, I got to see a lot of Brian's shows. I just thought they were the weirdest, funniest things; so original. Like, really, they can only come from one specific really weird person. I was just kind of intoxicated by them.
I remember the cop one, with some of the characters being really similar to the ones in Hot Streets, and just thinking it was the strangest, funniest thing. And then "Hot Cross Buns" is the one that really, really just has been seared in my memory ever since; it's the craziest, weirdest, and most hilarious thing I had seen. So when I found out that Adult Swim was doing Hot Streets, I was just so happy for Brian that the world would get to know his voice. When they reached out, it was a no-brainer; I was already such a fan of his work.
Wysol: We wrote [the part] specifically for Randall Park, and we kind of had all of our eggs in one basket and were like, "Well I really hope he can do this," because we realized how busy he is. We were so excited when he said yes, because we really didn't have a backup plan.
I'd also like to say, for people who are familiar with Randall from Fresh Off the Boat which I'm sure most people have seen, you should really check out a lot of his shorts that he wrote and directed. In particular, there's a show called The Food that I think is just absolutely hysterical, and Baby Mentalist, where he has his own child in the starring role. I've been a fan of Randall Park's comedy for years, so it was really cool to get to work with him.
What was the voice-acting experience like for you compared with your live-action work?
Park: It was really fun. For the longest time, I've wanted to do more voice acting. For some reason, I think I was just bad at it; I could not book any voice-acting jobs, and I think, more recently, I've been doing more ... ever since Fresh Off the Boat and getting the hang of it more. Just working with Brian, because I already knew him and because I was such a fan of his show, it was just so fun and loose. And I love the material. It's just so funny and weird, and that's kind of my sensibility. I just had a blast.
Would you be interested in pursuing more voice-acting opportunities?
Park: For sure. I've done a few things with Adult Swim in the past.
Wysol: I highly recommend "Broomshakalaka", one of the funniest things in the world to me.
Park: Oh yeah, it was one of those late-night infomercials that Adult Swim does. It's a good one.
Brian, what was the casting process like for Hot Streets?
Wysol: We approached it in that, for each of the characters we had a specific person in mind. For me, it's easier to write, almost, when you have a person in your head to create a character for versus writing something and then finding the person for the role. So what I was trying to do is to get that person in mind to find the right comedic voice for each specific part. There were a lot of parts where we just did random casting calls, but for the main players, typically, it was somebody that I know or had in mind going into it.
Does Hot Streets have an over-arching mythology, or is it more episodic?
Wysol: You're going to see a larger umbrella [tale unfold] as the story progresses, but we kind of hide it in a way. I think when you see the final episode, I feel like you'll understand what I'm talking about. It's all episodic, but there is an overall underlying story that you'll find out at the end.
Do you have an idea similar to Rick and Morty's mythology in mind for Hot Streets?
Wysol: It's a little different. I actually think our show is a little bit more serialized than Season 1 of Rick and Morty, which eventually got more serialized. What we did was, we had overall ideas for the season, some underlying mysteries that you might not even know is a mystery. The one thing that we wanted to make sure that we did was, every single mystery or everything we kind of hint at gets explained by the end of the season. If I were lucky enough to make another season, that's the approach that I would take again; each season can be its own entity.
Where does Hot Streets go from here?
Wysol: The first season is 10 episodes; right now, there hasn't been any official word on a second season, but I know Adult Swim is really behind the show and they love the characters and the story. If we were lucky enough to make a second season, I would want to just keep expanding the universe and really dig into the characters a bit more, to learn about them and go deep into the mythology and the world.
Were there any story suggestions that crossed the line? Specifically things like the apple scene.
Wysol: That's a very apt thing to bring up. When we broke that story, Justin Roiland told me that we had gone too far and perhaps we should rethink the story. Even Mike Lazzo, as well, I heard he was repulsed when he heard the idea. But they let us write it before they made a decision. They saw that we had a particular vision that, that joke, as disgusting and awful as it is, really makes sense for the story. It's not just to shock people, it's a part of that specific story, so I was grateful that they gave me the chance to show that I had a vision for the joke and it wasn't just ... it's disgusting, absolutely disgusting, but there was definitely a point to it.
When Justin Roiland says, "I think you've gone too far with this," how did you react?
Wysol: I laughed because I couldn't believe that I shocked Justin. He didn't say, "Don't do it," he said, "Think about it." [laughs] And I did. And it really made sense for the story. It kinda had to be.
What's next for the both of you?
Park: A few things. Ant-Man and the Wasp, I finished working on that, which I'm really excited about. I'm working on this Netflix movie with Ali Wong, a comedian who's a friend of mine, and we're getting into gear with that; that should be coming out a while from now.
Wysol: It is all Hot Streets, but I'm continually developing new show ideas and concepts. That's a lot of fun to do, but at this point, I've still just got my head in Hot Streets.
Be sure to tune into the insanity that is Hot Streets on Adult Swim this Sunday, January 14th at midnight ET/PT.
The quarter-hour animated science-fiction adventure series, created by the aforementioned Wysol (Rick and Morty, Robot Chicken), is produced by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. Seth Green, Matt Senreich, John Harvatine IV, and Eric Towner, Roiland, and Wysol also serve as executive producers.
