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Trust those wild folks at Adult Swim to come up with an offbeat spoof of HBO’s acclaimed series Succession, set in the glamorous world of a Bakersfield-set cracker-making dynasty. The show, which is called Royal Crackers, is created by Jason Ruiz (Murder Police) who also serves as executive producer along with Seth Cohen (Bless the Harts, The Last Man on Earth).
Produced by Titmouse, the series will premiere on Adult Swim this Sunday and will stream on HBO Max the next day. Ahead of the show’s debut, Royal Crackers received a second season order from Adult Swim. The voice cast includes Ruiz, Jessica St. Claire (Bob’s Burgers, American Dad!), Maile Flanagan (Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks, Naruto) and Fred Tatasciore (Primal, Animaniacs).
We had the chance to chat with Ruiz and Cohen a few days before the premiere of their show. Here is what they told us about Royal Crackers:
Animation Magazine: Congrats are in order as your show is just about to premiere on Adult Swim and it has already been greenlit for a second season! Can you tell us a bit about how the whole thing started out?
Jason Ruiz: It was a long development process. I think we started talking about it back in 2019. I remember I was really kind of exhausted by the prospect of coming up with another show idea and then going around town trying to sell it and being told no! I felt like I just couldn’t do it anymore. Then, Seth called me into his office one day and he said, “You should come up with a new concept,” and this time, it felt more promising than it had before.
As cheese as it sounds, it was all about finding a show that I could fall in in love with to the point where I could put hours and hours of work on it — even if nobody asked me to do it. At the same time, we were fans of Succession, and we thought, wouldn’t it be funny if we took that premise and focused on a fledgling, crappy company and treated it with the same high stakes? You couldn’t understand why running this company was such a coveted position for these people. After that, it was adding the “nu metal” element, which I have a great fondness for since I grew up in the 1990s and 2000s. It was just a matter of just filling up the show with with things that I was passionate about.
Seth Cohen: I think working with Jason is what I love about this show. He’s just such a talented guy in multiple ways. I think that’s the most coveted type of person, especially in animation, as he is someone who can write, design, edit and sort of play every single position. On top of that, he’s also super funny and I knew he had great ideas. I also knew that it was going to be an enjoyable process.
Adult Swim has been such a cool partner, and we’re really excited to get it out there, as the show got held back for a bit as the network was kind of figuring out the best time to air. We were also thrilled to be working with Titmouse as we have a lot of respect for the work that they do. The production team on this show is second to none. Everybody’s a contributor on this show, and they’re really a great place for nurturing artists. I can’t sing their praises enough.
Can you talk a little bit about the show’s down-home 2D visual style and animation?
Jason: I think the visual style just came from me starting to draw the characters for the show. I’m a Flash animator [Now Adobe Animate] and that jagged line is just the style that I was drawing at the time. It was just a choice and style that just stuck. It looks a little raw, but that’s what I wanted to do. I am a huge fan of Mike Judge cartoons, King of the Hill and Beavis and Butt-head. You can really see, like, somebody drew those characters. It was just a matter of trying to mimic that style as much as we could digitally, so that kind of helped navigate the look of the show. These character we have are rough, and our show is rough around the edges, literally! We use Adobe Animate and do all our animatics in house. Then we ship it overseas to Inspidea (Malaysia).
Jason, you mentioned the Mike Judge shows. Seth, who are your big animation favorites?
Seth: Family Guy is a big influence. I know it’s not the coolest answer, but Family Guy was the show that had a big impact on me when I watched it as a teen. I remember seeing that show and thinking it really clicked with me and wanting to do the something similar. I really like Michael Cusack’s show [YOLO: Crystal Fantasy] and the early days of Rick and Morty, too. I feel like they have a sort of punk rock spirit to them. Beavis and Butt-head looks a couple of teenagers drew it.
Jason, you started creating animated content when you were pretty young, right?
Jason: When I was 12, I got involved with the online community that was all about this software that Microsoft had created called Microsoft Kids 3D Movie Maker. That was a huge turning point because it gave me a lot of confidence to move forward. So, later on I moved to Los Angeles when I was 20 and started to work in this business.
Seth, you’ve navigated between live action and animation (The Last Man on Earth, Bless the Harts, Son of Zorn) — what brought you back to animation?
Seth: No set visits or call times, no overnight shoots! Seriously, animation is just super fun because there is no limit. When I work with people who aren’t as familiar with animation as Jason is, the real advice I give them is, like, “You have to make decisions, otherwise you’ll end up going on endlessly,” and it can be paralyzing. It’s exciting as a producer to be able to work with someone like Jason who has that ability to make those creative decisions.
Jason, you mentioned that years ago, you felt burned out by the whole process of making pitches and trying to sell your shows to various studios. You know there’s a tough climate out there with the cutbacks at all the streamers. What kind of advice can you offers show creators who want to make their passion projects happen?
Jason: First of all, make something that is special and important to you. Don’t ever look at what is popular and think, OK, I’m going to make something like what’s selling right now. Don’t ever do that. I fell into that trap for many years myself. You have to make something that comes from you and it’s your voice and it’s different from what everybody else is doing. You just have to hold out for when it comes around to be your turn.
I remember I heard Bill Burr say something similar once in an interview. He was talking about, you know, there was a point where club comedy was just dead and he kind of felt himself changing his voice in order to kind of fit into those rooms. I think you just have to be patient and be true to your own voice. Don’t ever, like, look around and then try to mimic what the other people are doing!
Seth: I would also add: Try to develop a bunch of different tools and don’t be intimidated. You may not have that ability right now. That doesn’t mean you won’t have that ability in six months or a year if you practice your talent. It helps to be broadly attractive, so develop a bunch of tools. There are so many classes out there. Now is the best time there’s ever been to learn how to make stuff. Just go and do it.
Royal Crackers premieres on Adult Swim this Sunday (April 2) at 11 p.m. and will stream on HBO Max on Monday. The first episode is available to watch now on YouTube.
