Royal Crackers Creator and EP Talk Joining Adult Swim, Working With Gilbert Gottfried, and More

Joining Adult Swim During the Pandemic

NICK VALDEZ, COMICBOOK.COM: We all needed something to keep us going. I can't imagine what it was like for you guys in the creative industry too, needing to keep that energy going.

JASON RUIZ: It was Royal Crackers, to be honest. That's what it was. It was working on Royal Crackers because we did the first season entirely during the height of the pandemic.

SETH COHEN: Yeah.

Really? Wow, because I was going to ask you two how it feels to join Adult Swim's lineup during all of this. Adult Swim is going all out. We got a confirmation of a Season 2, we got the cool cracker billboard, and then the early premiere of the first episode. So I just want to know how it feels from both of you to see this actually happening?

RUIZ: Amazing. Amazing. They're incredible, and they really let us do the show we wanted to do for sure. If this show comes out and everyone hates it, I can't point the finger at Adult Swim and be like, well, they wouldn't let me. No, that is my show. Sorry. That's our show to own in terms of the creative choices behind it. They're amazing at letting us do the show we want to do. So I'm really grateful.

COHEN: And at the risk of shutting other doors in town, this is the best place to do an animated show. The marketing team gets the show. Everyone has been so incredibly supportive. They have great ideas. They really understand what you're trying to do here, and this is not going to be popular but they don't do a thousand shows, so they can really...the shows they make are couture. There's not this flood of shows so to be embraced, to be one of their shows. I don't know how many new shows that they're putting out, but it probably be less than five. So to be part of that, to be with such creative, thoughtful executives, marketers. We just have the highest regard for the brand. It's fantastic to be there.

Balancing Comedy and Drama

Speaking to that, one of the things that really stood out to me with the three episodes I've seen so far is, you got a lot of the Adult Swim stuff with the absurd moments, like the extended falling down the stairs, the light switch gag, and stuff like that. But at the same time, there's a very striking emotional core. It's still a family story, so I just want to know what it was like making sure to balance those tones together.

RUIZ: Man, I don't know how to answer that in the sense that I don't want to come off like an asshole, but it wasn't hard. It really wasn't. These characters are informed by very real parts of us, and their struggles are informed by...The character of Theo is very personal to me. I'm not sure which episodes you watched.

It was the pilot, the chicken factory and the Gilbert Gottfried episode.

COHEN: Oh nice.

RUIZ: So with that Gilbert Gottfried episode, it was like...That is a struggle that I know and have lived of feeling like my time had come and gone and that it was over, and I had missed the boat. That's very real to me. And the fact that episode in particular, there's a lot going on for me that is beyond what is just happening on a very surface story level. That episode for me is very personal, a lot going on there for me. So it was just a matter of, I guess the answer to that is just, it was just a matter of writing from the gut, but still wanting it to be very silly and very stupid.

The material that you're working with, whether it's nu-metal or whatever, it's a variable. It doesn't matter how silly or a name it is, as long as it's being informed from something at the core of, I want this, I need this, but I don't have this, then the heartfelt stuff comes very, very easy because you really do feel those things. I think that was just striking the balance between the really silly tone of the show, but then also the heartfelt nature of it.

COHEN: Yeah also, I think Jason is a product of...He grew up on Adult Swim shows. I think if you look at what precedes the stair fall is, it's funny, but it is a family having an argument about status. And then it's like, okay, that's heavy. That's not heavy because we're doing it stupidly but it's like, okay, how do we break this up? And then I'm such a fan of the physical stupid comedy, yeah, that's a great moment to undercut this stupid argument in a way. How do you heighten this argument? How do you heighten how trivial their argument is?

Oh, their father falls down the stairs on an infinite loop. So it's a great palate cleanser to some of the more...Calling it serious makes it seem like it's on PBS. It's not, but you get what I'm saying. It's just like, how do you undercut those moments? And certainly the outside of it, the writers on the show, and Jason specifically, they're so used to that Adult Swim language, like, oh wait, we can do something nuts where you couldn't do that on other places.

Working With Gilbert Gottfried

I do want to touch on the Gilbert Gottfried of it all. How was it working with him? He's worked with Adult Swim before, but this was a very prominent role. At the end of the episode there was "In Loving Memory" tribute too, so what was it like getting him on board and bringing him on as "The Fixer"?

RUIZ: I think Seth, you suggested him playing The Fixer, and I was immediately like, yes, without a doubt. So I have a very special memory, that very special memory that I have with Gilbert, which is that he showed up about two hours late to the record. And I very genuinely told him, listen, Gilbert Gottfried's been working forever, and he's done tons of voiceover work. He's not going to be like, wow, I'm so excited to be working on Royal Crackers. He's just not, and you have to accept that.

He came in and I very sincerely was like, Gilbert, thank you so much for being here. It's a real honor. I watched Aladdin as a little kid, and yeah, he's a voice of my childhood, so it really was an honor to have him. And he just responded with, "I have no idea what this is." And we're like, "Thanks. Thank you, Gilbert." So then we go into the recording and he's doing great. It's turning out really well. But he's doing it in a way where it's not like he's doing a Royal Crackers performance. It's like he's doing just what Gilbert does, which is go and be himself in the mic and it's very funny. But then it got to this turn where we talked.

I remember telling him, I'm like, "Hey, in this moment right here, you're about to kill yourself. You're about to sacrifice yourself." And he flipped. It was turning on some dial in him that I had never seen ever from him and anything he's done where he got very, oh, he perked up. I think it's one of the runs at the very end where he is talking to Theo about life or something like that and he just nailed it. It was all of a sudden he was this mysterious actor, and he was really giving it his all. After it was over, he actually wanted to go back and re-record previous lines that he had already done and he was just super into it and he was down. At the end of it he was like, "When does this come out? When can I see this? Can anybody show this to me?" He was really into the project.

It's very easy for me, if somebody gives me a compliment for me to spin that in my head as like, well, they're just being nice, or they have to say that, but to watch this guy go from, "All right, what am I doing here? Give me the lines." Then to the end of it, being really invested and going and having a curiosity for the show and being really into it was so special to me. It was really a vote of confidence for me at that time, because nobody had looked at the show. We didn't know what we were doing. We didn't know if it was going to work or still don't really, but he was amazing. I'll remember that forever, it was just such a beautiful moment that he gave me in his, I think maybe last performance, his last animated performance just by circumstance. But yeah, really, really special working with that guy. I'll never forget it.

Taint Getting a Full Album?

I hate to do such a huge detour with this final question to you two, but is there any chance we'll get to see a full Taint track or Taint album? Because we hear some at the end of the pilot, and Theo's got some stuff he's working on in the show, so any chance we'll get to see a full version? Because I'm into it.

COHEN: I don't know if you've seen it, but there is a part where [Andrew Santino] sort of sings, and I was surprised that-

RUIZ: He's a good singer.

COHEN: I was like, whoa, that's interesting. And I think it's our music guy, and Jason can talk to his relationship with him, but is really fantastic. The people who are writing the lyrics, people are putting the music together. I feel like a tour is in order.

RUIZ: I agree. I was just telling our team that we really got to make more Taint songs. I would love to make a fully fleshed out Taint album. That'd be incredible. I mean, that's the point. Andrew's talented. Love Andrew, by the way, but he'll go above and beyond to not say that he can sing well. Just like, "Well, I can sing like this and this and this." He'll downplay it, but that guy can perform for sure. He's got a good voice. So yes, full Taint album and tour coming.

COHEN: We're talking to Ticketmaster right now. We want them to charge more fees. That's our only requirement. [laughs]

Royal Crackers premieres on Adult Swim on Sunday, April 2nd at 11:00PM EST and will stream on HBO Max the following day. Royal Crackers Season 2 is now in production.