Avatar: The Last Airbender has become a huge success story for Netflix this year. Dante Basco, beloved by fans of the show for his role as Prince Zuko, believes that the Nick original is more popular now than when it aired all those years ago. He sat down with Comicbook.com to talk about his role in Artificial on Twitch. That show has him playing a childhood friend of the protagonist, but with an adversarial edge. You could be mistaken for thinking it sounds a lot like an antagonist modeled on Zuko. Well, Basco is pretty beloved by a lot of different fans from Hook, American Dragon: Jake Long, and Avatar. The Nick show holds a special place for a lot of people who were there when the show launched in 2005.
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Now, as The Last Airbender has remained in the most-watched category on Netflix for almost a month, people are wondering why the program has endured. A lot of the viewers watching now hadn’t even seen the animated series before this year. Well, for Basco, it all comes down to how relatable the characters are, and how much fans can easily connect to the story.
CB: How has it been the last couple weeks since Avatar got on Netflix? Everybody was really, really ecstatic. I’ve seen more posting about it, it threw me back to when it was first on TV and we were on it really hard core.
“Yeah I think it kind of blew up out of nowhere, which is great and unexpected,” Basco began. “But it really goes to show you: A, the power of Netflix, and B, the power of a really good project that kind of lasted over the years now. And it’s like you said, it may be more popular than when it was first out.”
CB: I see you’ve actually become the most relatable character in the show. When I’m in charge of stuff to write about, I keep tabs on the fan base. 80% of the memes are Zuko memes.
“Of course, man. I mean, ‘That’s rough buddy,’ has become one of the most quoted lines. It’s strange that these lines that we don’t think much of them when we do them. It’s just how the project came out. It doesn’t strike me why they become a part of the zeitgeist in whatever world we’re in,” he observed.
“‘That’s rough buddy…’ and ‘Hello, Zuko here,’ little lines that I didn’t think much of when we did and something stuck with how the project came out, become these kind of catchphrases in life for people to use, that they use in their regular life. I get a kick out of all that,” Basco added. “Again, little things that none of us could predict. You know we didn’t plan any of these things, these things happened organically. I appreciate, I’m proud of that multiplying, you know.”
Check out Dante Basco in Artificial on Twitch, a live audience-interactive scripted sci-fi series following an A.I. being on a journey to become human. It airs every Thurs. at 5pm PT / 8pm ET on Twitch. (Check out the show page here.)
What’s your favorite Zuko quote in Avatar? Let us know down in the comments!
