Royal Crackers Cast Talks Wildest Scenes, Season 2 and More

Who Should Run Royal Crackers?

NICK VALDEZ, COMICBOOK.COM: So I just wanted to get around the room real quick, if you only had the choice of Theo or Stebe to take over Royal Crackers, who would you pick?

MAILE FLANAGAN (voice of Matt): Stebe.

JESSICA ST. CLAIR (voice of Deb): You know, it's so funny. I'm married to Steve, but I think Theo has a real maverick quality to him. I mean, this company needs so much help. I think he's going to maybe have to take some Elon Musk swings. Need to betray my own husband like that, but I'm going to go with Theo.

That's, that's some real Succession talk. One of the things that was really jumping out with Royal Crackers was the fact that it's sort of a funny take on Succession. So what was it like to take on such a serious story in this new kind of way?

ST. CLAIR: It's so funny. I never thought of that comparison until now. It's perfect. Except for instead of being these good looking people, we are horrible looking, horrible acting people who would not even be invited to the premiere of Succession. They would find a way to burrow underground to get there. So yeah, it's super fun. I love the fact that this family, weirdly, it's like they're so weird. I don't think anyone else would accept them. So they really are stuck with each other, but they kind of seem to enjoy each other's company, even though they're calling each other assholes all the time.

DAVID GBORIE (voice of Darby): Yeah. I get the feeling that they like themselves a bit more than maybe than they like each other a bit more than the Succession's characters? I think that they have a healthy competition. I don't think it's nearly as cutthroat as it is on Succession.

ST. CLAIR: They're not smart enough to screw each other over.

FLANAGAN: Yeah. I think that's at the heart of it. They're at a base level. It's like the smarts stopped. They kept growing up, but they didn't keep learning at all.

Taking on Royal Crackers During the Pandemic

I was speaking to [Royal Crackers series creator Jason Ruiz and executive producer Seth Cohen] previously, and one of the things that Jason had pointed out was that Season 1 was largely produced through the height of the pandemic. I wanted to get your perspective on it as performers taking on a project during when it was tough to even get to a studio.

GBORIE: I mean, talk about being thankful for the work then, right? Really amazing to have something to do throughout that. This is kind of my first big animation role. I'm used to doing voiceover where I did it alone anyways, so it wasn't too different for me. Jason really made it easy as far as helping us out. We were recording by ourselves, but it didn't feel like lonely or difficult or like you couldn't bounce ideas around or anything like that. He really made a fun environment to do this. Even during the pandemic.

FLANAGAN: Yeah, there was an element that was not very political like some of the other recording sessions can be. It was loose, funny, and collaborative. As we've said numerous times all the jokes were already there, but sometimes it would be funny because he would edit himself while we were recording, and that was kind of cool to see a little bit about how his mind worked. He's like, "Yeah, I think you're just going to say no five times in a row, so give me five no's in a different way. No, no, no, no, no."

ST. CLAIR: He's also just such a mild mannered, nice guy and he would have a little chihuahua on his lap a lot of the times during the recording sessions. But how that guy comes up with this insane stuff is very disturbing. It's like, where is that part of him hidden that comes up with this stuff? This is really great.

FLANAGAN: There's also a dictionary's worth of trivia and references. He'd be like, "You ever heard of this band?" And I was like, not really. He could name 20 like it is in the show, 20 heavy metal bands off the top of his head.

GBORIE: A lot of bands I haven't heard anybody talk about since junior high school, for sure.

Royal Crackers' Wild Character Moments

David, I do want to ask you, one of the things that really made me laugh that first episode was the wiping myself kind of moment where Darby was like, "Oh yeah, I needed something to read [on the toilet." So I was curious about how you brought that wild aspect of Darby to life, but it's our first real impression of Darby overall.

GBORIE: It was exciting because Jason really let me run with it. I had read it, and I had a way to do it in my head. I think we recorded in order, so I think that was my first or second session with him. He just gave me the free range. He was like, "Go crazy, scream, go nuts. Just act like you are about to poop your pants," and I think it turned out well. But I remember coming home after that and being like, "God, if that doesn't work, that's going to be the weirdest scene. If it doesn't go over the way it's supposed to, it's going to be so strange."

ST. CLAIR: It's almost like you black out. I felt like I blacked out in most of these recordings and they would be three hours long. I'd walk out like, "What did I do? What did I say?" And so much of it was fight scenes with yourself, which is so amazing. I just had to close my eyes. I'm like, "I'm humiliated while I'm doing this." But then it ended up being the funniest sh-t when you see it.

Jessica, I was actually going to ask about that because you have that moment as Deb with the CBD gummies, and it becomes this real explosive thing.

ST. CLAIR: I imagined what my parents would be like if they took, my mom still refers to marijuana as dope. She's like, "You got to be careful with the dope." I'm like, "Mom, what are you talking about?" And I do have a friend whose mom, by accident, ate like 10 prop pot brownies and had to go to the hospital because she was losing her mind and falling around the floor like a dog. I just basically tried to weirdly channel my parents, and it was nice for me because Jason was there for most of my scenes, so I got to be actually acting with him. That was nice.

On the complete opposite end of that spectrum, Maile, your Matt does a lot with very little, so soft-spoken but each of those lines manages to hit. So I just want to know what goes into making sure to do the most with very little?

FLANAGAN: This is the first time in a cartoon that I've done the most with very little most of the time on camera. I come in with the line, then I'm out of the scene, then come back in another line. But it was fun to be slow and easy. It was fun to just listen and observe and then think how that kid would react to that situation. What's really funny is, I mean, I would love to hear everybody's outtakes because there must be hours and hours and hours, right?

GBORIE: Yeah.

FLANAGAN: Some of those things I could hear Jason saying, "What take do we use?" And I felt really bad for whoever that day was taking the take numbers because he would be like, "I don't know what take it is, I don't know what number." Right?

GBORIE: Yeah. All the time. All the time.

FLANAGAN: So for me, for Matt, and I had so much less to say than any of the other characters that it was kind of joyful. I was like, Hey, this is a piece of cake. But when he explodes, he explodes, and you haven't seen that yet. Get a taste of that in the future. Something to look forward to.

Royal Crackers Season 2: What's Next?

Speaking of the future, Royal Crackers Season 2 has been confirmed to be in production. I don't know how much you all can tell me about your involvement, but what are you hoping to explore with Season 2?

GBORIE: More mayhem. Let's push it.

ST. CLAIR: Where is there to go? That's the thing. We have been recording Season 2, and I can tell you it gets even crazier. It really is. You need to experience this show to understand what it is, but it absolutely should be on Adult Swim. I think it's hilarious it's on HBO Max because somebody like my parents could find it and be like, "What?" It's almost like you're taking acid when you're watching this show in a good way.

GBORIE: That's exactly what I said. Or mushrooms.

ST. CLAIR: Or mushrooms. Yeah, more like a mushroom trip. Very fun, but also it's insane. You got to just go with it.

What Adult Swim Fans Should Look Out For

As a final question, What are you hoping that fans of Adult Swim who are being introduced to this show walk away with? How do you think it might stand out from everything else that Adult Swim has?

Flanagan: I don't think there's any way it can't stand out. Just the little bit that you've seen stands out already.

GBORIE: For me as an actor, and I watch animation, I don't watch all animation, but I watch enough of it, or I've been exposed to enough of it, this is not like something people have seen at all. It's shocking. It's irreverent. It's weirdly current and yet kind of a throwback, and it's got all these amazing oddball references, and then the stuff the animators throw in the background. I was talking about the magazines in the office. It's just little stuff here and there. There's stuff.

ST. CLAIR: We keep saying, you can watch these episodes over and over again because it's so cram packed with really good jokes that you miss some of them on the way through. So that's really exciting. I really do picture this becoming a cult favorite because it's nice to see when you kind of feel like everything's being watered down. This is vintage Adult Swim, I would say this is exactly what Adult Swim is for, and now everyone can access it. So it's exciting.

GBORIE: Yeah, it's its own in that it's current and it's a different structure. But this definitely reminds me of a show that I just grew up smoking weed with my friends watching on Adult Swim. It's that much fun. So yeah, I'm excited.

Yeah, so maybe load up on those CBD gummies, right?

GBORIE: Yeah, load up, Load up.

ST. CLAIR: Load up, but don't take more than two because you'll lose your mind.

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.