Regular Show Creator Talks Bringing Back Dead Characters, Adult Mordecai And Rigby

The park employees of Regular Show returned earlier this year with the highly anticipated spin-off series, Regular Show: The Lost Tapes. In a surprising twist of fate, the side story is taking place at various times throughout the history of the original series, which gives the animators the opportunity to weave some wild stories. At this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, creator J.G. Quintel, the animators, and the cast of the spin-off explained how dead characters can now return. With Pops returning in the show’s premiere, it’s clear that The Lost Tapes is more than willing to focus on characters alive and dead alike.

As Regular Show enthusiasts know, Pops was killed when he sacrificed himself to defeat his evil sibling, Anti-Pops, in the original series finale. Now enjoying the afterlife in heaven, Pops is watching the “Lost Tapes” as a way to dart around the original timeline and pass the time. During a recent interview for Warner Bros TV, series creator J.G. Quintel was excited to start bringing back characters who had died in the original series, and surprisingly, there are more than you might think: “Now that we’re in the afterlife, that docket has been like reopened, and we’re like, these characters can be in the afterlife.” Ironically enough, while The Lost Tapes is revisiting past events, the future might not be eyeballed in the spin-off. You can see the interview in its entirety below.

An Adult Mordecai And Rigby

One of the strongest possibilities for a sequel series that many Regular Show fans speculated on following the series finale was the idea that a sequel would take place in the future. The final installment takes us through the lives of Mordecai and Rigby as they settle down, start families of their own, and eventually reunite at the park to create a heartwarming reunion. During this recent interview, storyboard artist Sean Szeles is asked if there was ever a thought of focusing on the protagonists as adults for The Lost Tapes.

“We thought of it, but it never really appealed to us to start from that jumping-off point. A lot of reboots would take that route, like, ‘Oh, we’re going to follow Rigby’s kids and get into those same shenanigans.’ We wanted to jump back into the world we loved and do more episodes for adventures we haven’t seen. We’re developing an arc that unfolds during the season with Pops that we’re excited for people to see. It didn’t excite us as much.” This isn’t to say that the adult iterations of these characters won’t eventually appear, however, as the creators didn’t confirm one way or the other, but a full series following Mordecai and Rigby at this point in their lives seems unlikely.

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Regular Show: The Lost Tapes Confirms Its Return With New Preview