Tonight at midnight ET/PT on Adult Swim, Paget Brewster will brings fans back to the world of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law with Birdgirl. In the new series, Paget voices Birdgirl (as well as her alter ego Judy Ken Sebben, daughter of Harvey Birdman character Phil Ken Sebben, who at the start of the series is presumed dead. In fact, the setup here might be somewhat similar to Harvey Birdman — following his death, Judy’s father left Birdgirl as CEO of his company. Note: Birdgirl, not Judy. He did not know she was a costumed crimefighter, which adds an extra layer to her character, as well as giving us a reason to have a superhero in costume while sitting in a board room full of suits.
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The six-episode series will debut tonight, and run weekly on Sunday nights at the same time. In something of a rarity for Adult Swim these days, Birdgirl is a half-hour sitcom, rather than being cut down into 8- or 15-minute chunks as has become popular in so many animated comedies.
“It’s kind of like Star Trek: The Next Generation or Fear the Walking Dead. The only character form Harvey Birdman so far in Birdgirl is Birdgirl,” explained Brewster, noting that fans of the original series, which ran from 2000 until 2007, should love the new show, but knowing it won’t be necessary to enjoy Birdgirl.
“She’s a terrible CEO, and is out fighting crime instead of running the company, so it’s Judy sort of suffering and having to switch back and forth between Judy and Birdgirl,” said Brewster, who said that the character is written to have fairly distinct personalities when she is in and out of costume. She’s really a failure int he boardroom and the company is really socially irreesponsible. It’s an amoral company; they develop products that are just wrong, and that’s if they work.”
On top of all that, Birdgirl decides to start a superhero team in the boardroom, by giving codenames to members of her inner circle. She’s egged on by Meredith, a mindreader who is the only person in the series who knows the secret of Judy’s dual identities.
“What’s interesting is, when we record Birdgirl, we do one pass all the way through the script as Judy and then do another pass all the way through as Birdgirl,” Brewster explained. “Because when we first started recording, I was just getting the energy level all messed up, and they are sort of two different people. So those guys were so nice to work with me and say, ‘Okay, we’ll record it twice.’…because they are so different that I would have to record them separately. I’m so proud of it and I think it’s so funny and it’s such a goofy and weird escape, so it’s nice to see something that can take you out of everything and you’re just seeing these goofball friends trying to make a company run.”
Birdgirl airs Sunday nights at 12 on Adult Swim.
