Beebo Saves Christmas Star Ben Diskin Talks Building a Character From “A Smile and a Catchphrase”

When voice actor Ben Diskin took a gig voicing a Tickle Me Elmo-style stuffed toy for an episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow back in 2017, it would have been inconceivable that, four years later, that toy would be getting its own, standalone animated special with a star-studded cast and Diskin at the center of it. Tonight, though, Beebo Saves Christmas will air on The CW, and the character, who has never uttered more than a few words, will have a whole world built around him. It’s the kind of cool, funny, self-indulgent, surreal move that Legends fans love, but Diskin never could have seen it coming.

In fact, after “Beebo the God of War” aired in December 2017, Diskin went for quite a while before discovering that Beebo had become a phenomenon among Arrowverse fans. His first inkling was when the furball appeared on Comic Con International’s bags in the summer of 2018.

“So much of the character really comes out thanks to the writing that went into this show,” Diskin told ComicBook. “I’m fortunate that everybody who worked on this, really put their all into taking a character — who really is nothing but a smile and a catchphrase — and giving him a personality that is clear and defining, that also goes along with the voice. He’s a very optimistic, pleasant, cheerful character. So, the voice is already there, it’s just sort of transitioned that voice into an extension of the voice that already existed. So, thankfully for me, it didn’t require like a whole bunch of bending and twisting into trying to come up with a character on my own. That would’ve been really hard.”

Because he had no idea how popular the character was until late in the game, it took Diskin a while to understand why he kept coming back, fighting time demons, stomping on skyscrapers, and the like.

“I honestly was surprised that they even brought the character back for any additional episodes and crossovers and stuff,” Diskin admitted. “I was just like ‘Really? Wait, do people like this thing?’ And then I was told ‘Oh yeah, at Comic-Con we had a bunch of gift bags and they have Beebo all over them, and people like it.’ I’m like ‘Really? But it’s a gag character. Seriously?’ But just the fact that I got to keep playing is a complete and total mystery to me, and I’m just very happy that the tradition lives on with now a special.”

Beebo Saves Christmas airs tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. The special will reair on December 14.