Wild Life’s Reggie Watts Talks Bringing Darby to Life and Psychedelic Frogs

SYFY’s late-night animation block TZGZ is home to some delightful worlds and characters, and one of the most unique of the lineup is the post-apocalyptic comedy Wild Life. Wild Life is about a group of animal friends living at a zoo after the apocalypse, and the eccentric cast of characters will quickly worm their way into your hearts. Fans will fall in love with all of the crazy characters, including the always chill Darby, a psychedelic loving Koala voiced by Reggie Watts. ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to Watts about the show and the character of Darby, starting with how he got involved with the show and what he digs most about it.

“It’s one of those things where it was in my inbox from my management and they said, ‘What do you think?’ And I read the premise and I was like, ‘Yeah, sounds like fun.’ Next thing you know I’m in the studio recording,” Watts said. “I like to discover what I’m doing as I’m doing it and this was one of those moments where, as I was reading the sketch before the pandemic hit and got to meet everybody and did a voice recording of it, I was just laughing my ass off. It was such a funny, awesome thing. I have just been kind of along for the ride as the show developed.”

Darby is as calm as they come, even in the most stressful of situations, and it comes in handy throughout the series, and for Watts is actually someone you would want to hang out with in real life.

“Yeah. He’s just like a super cool, chill guy. I guess kind of like the… I forget his name, but in Dazed and Confused. Matthew McConaughey. He’s a little bit of that guy, but a little bit more jazz, kind of chill guy. But, he’s got a lot of tricks up his sleeve, and he’s really chill about it, and he loves psychedelics a lot,” Watts said. “He’s an interesting cat, but he’s like the guy that you’d want to hang out with. You’d want him at a party just chilling.”

You won’t find Darby without Glenn too often, a pacifist Cheetah who struggles to let out his inner animal and is naturally nervous, and that’s kind of why Darby is rarely seen not by his side.

“Well, I think Glenn needs balance, because he gets anxious, worries about things a lot and he’s always questioning his nature,” Watts said. “So, I think as a koala I think my predisposition is just so mellow and I have a feeling like my character’s definitely a little bit older and a little bit more experienced and it just has a calming effect for Glenn.”

It helps when you have a psychedelic frog with you at all times, who Darby licks to start tripping, and the little guy was always part of the equation from the very start. “If I remember when I was doing my readings and stuff like that, I think most of the time the frog is just there. He’s just licking, always licking the frog.”

If Wild Life gets a second season, we’ll obviously see more of Darby and Glenn, but there is another character Watts would love Darby to interact with more if given the chance.

“Yeah. Well, I really like Marny. She’s just cool and just crazy, and I love that also that she’s a water mammal and she’s trying to hang out with the animals that hang out on land,” Watts said. “She’s just kind of funny. She’s definitely got a more extreme mindset than everybody else, I think.”

Wild Life isn’t really like anything else out there, and that’s actually kind of the point. It’s a show about friends in an extreme setting, but the sense of fun always remains, even in the crazier circumstances.

“If the creator described this show, it’s kind of a hangout show. I think people just need to be reminded that you could just hang out with your friends and have adventures and just value each other’s time,” Watts said. “We’re always worried about so many things, especially these days, so many things coming at us, so many different angles, and while these guys are having adventures, they’re mostly kind of hanging out and just being friends and I just love the simplicity of that. I think it’s kind of a good break from all the hyper drama.”

You can catch the adventures of the Wild Life crew every Saturday night at midnightish on SYFY’s TZGZ, and let us know what you think of the show in the comments or by hitting me up on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!