Dec 2, 2015

Sean Zelles Spoofs Kings and Punks in CN's New Miniseries "All Hail the Kings"

Regular Show Supervising Producer and Writer Sean Zeles can't get the recent primetime Emmy Awards out of his head." I take it with me everywhere I go!" He told Cartoon Brew.

Most recently, an Emmy was also presented to Long Live the Royals, the second Cartoon Network original miniseries following Patrick McHale's decorative fantasy Over the Garden Wall, which spoofed royalty. No pressure!

"I was nervous to follow "Over the Garden Wall" because McHale is a genius. McHale is a genius, so following up with Over the Garden Wall was nerve-wracking. I think it's great that Cartoon Network is fostering creative storytelling. I'm grateful to be a part of it."

Ceres' satirical riffs on the royal family stem from growing up watching British TV shows from "Fawlty Towers" to "Upstairs Downstairs." Its skewering of class and culture influenced the "cozy idiots" who fell into the perilous social and political position of "Hail to the Crown."

"I always found it funny and amusing that the characters were trying to be more upper class than they were," Serres told Cartoon Brew.

"The king and queen are certainly cozy idiots, but the children aren't so uptight about their roles in society, which I think gives the family a human touch." [Portlandia comedian (and former Trench Mouse drummer) Fred Armisen voices the princess's boyfriend, Gavin, and the cast also includes John Daly, who plays King Rufus, and Wendy McClendon-Covey, who plays Queen Eleanor The film also features the voice of Gavin. As a rule, aristocratic spoofs, however comfortable they may be, call for upstart rebellion.

"Punks are great! I love their disillusioned attitudes and nonconformist conformity," Ceres said. 'Armisen was great. He's good at super-special comedy. The rest of the cast are actors we looked for for specific roles."

Ceres' journey from regular show to "Hail the Royals" was a learning experience, which is probably why Cartoon Network decided to give him a chance to follow and contrast with McHale's acclaimed miniseries. Working with directors like Dave Wasson, Jorge Gutierrez, and J.G. Quintel taught him what it takes to make a show, Ceres says. [From Season 1 as a writer and storyboard artist to today as a supervising producer working on Season 8, "Regular Show" is the longest-running show I've worked on. Without those years of experience, I definitely could not have created "Long Live the Royals". The TV schedule is very fast, and this time it seemed even faster because we had a set air date.

To make "Long Live the Royals" error-free, Chris Tsirgiotis was hired to pencil most of the show's background layouts on paper, background layout artists Jim Alles and Clark Snyder worked digitally using Photoshop, and art director Natalie Harris worked in Photoshop. work, and art director Natalie Francioni-Karp used it to paint the keys. The show was traditionally animated on paper at Serom Animation in Seoul, Korea.

"Working all these years has taught me to have a clear vision," she said. 'But you also have to be open to new things that come along and to the input of the artists you hire to create them. It's a crazy balance."

The four-episode miniseries "The Long Life of Kings" premieres this week on Cartoon Network, Monday through Thursday.