On Monday, January 9, Hulu will launch the first season of the new adult animated comedy Koala Man. The series is set in the small Australian town of Dapto, where middle-aged dad/City Council member Kevin (Michael Cusack) dresses up as super-hero Koala Man to fight crime and clean up the city. The only problem is that he doesn’t really have any superpowers, the town doesn’t really like him, and he only gets calls for the most mundane of problems—such as an older resident unable to properly work her new Blu-ray player. Kevin’s family—wife Vicky (Sarah Snook), and teenage twins Alison (Demi Lardner) & Liam (Michael Cusack)—know about his secret identity and often get sucked into his all important “missions”. Kevin’s boss, Mayor Big Greg (Hugh Jackman) is a former TV host and beloved by everyone in town. Kevin can’t help but feel a bit of jealousy and contempt for him at times as his crusade to clean up the town often goes unnoticed and unappreciated.

I checked out all 8 episodes of the first season, and found that the series does an excellent job of slowing building out the world and the characters over the course of the season—much like Rick & Morty and Solar Opposites, both of which also have a more serialized format, and also come from executive producer Justin Roiland. While things for Koala Man start off a bit mundane at first, by the end of the season things are just wild and insane, and Koala Man is dealing with all kinds of real threats, including monsters, villainous masterminds, supernatural horrors, and more. There is a lot of excellent humor in the series, but this is definitely a series geared towards adults, and there’s a lot of stuff that won’t be appropriate for younger viewers.

Back in July, at San Diego Comic-Con, we got the chance to speak with executive producer Justin Roiland and series creators/showrunners Michael Cusack, Dan Hernandez & Benji Samit. about the series. You can find this Q&A below.

Could you talk about your involvement in Koala Man?

Justin Roiland: I’ll do anything for [Michael Cusack], like he is one of the most brilliant talented amazing human beings that I’ve ever met and and also just his stuff makes me laugh my ass off truly. … I’m involved in so much as I was championing for him. I was like this guy’s got shows, multiple, in him as we now see you know with YOLO: Crystal Fantasy, and Smiling Friends with Zach Hadel, brilliant incredible and Smiling Friends is just gonna get bigger and bigger. We’ll be here probably talking in a couple of years and or you’ll be talking to him and Zach and it’ll be like the biggest show ever. And I think Koala Man is gonna go that trajectory as well. But my involvement really is very much like I’m there if they need me. I helped to get it greenlit to series. I told Michael like if there’s ever any snags, any jokes, or if you get any notes that you don’t quite understand or that you really are passionate about disagreeing with them and stuff or if there’s any way it’s more of the machine, you know, the development machine. I’m a phone call away and I’m happy to come in and in a really peaceful, friendly way try to negotiate and help you, and figure out what’s the note behind the note? How is there a way that the note can be addressed that’s still Michael, Benji and Dan’s like, sensibility and vision for the show. And ultimately it’s been amazing the relationship we have with Hulu for [Solar Opposites and Koala Man] They believe in the team and they just have notes and thoughts, but they’re the best executives in that … whatever note they have is more of a more of a thought. And then they kind of give it to you to figure out.
 

Where did the idea for Koala Man come from?

Michael Cusack: So I have been animating for a while, since I was in my early 20s. I just learned myself and I love kind of doing little shorts about where I grew up, and they seem to do well on the internet. And I got into superheroes, which was late, like 25 or something. And I was like, oh, what would an Australian superhero be like? So they’d definitely have no superpowers. They wouldn’t be cool or interesting. They’d be kind of schlubby and like, be in a town that is not cool. Like not a cool Gotham. So being like a superhero in a small suburban town seemed funny to me. And especially because it is what I realized it’s a thing in America, people are very, like boomers like my dad and his friends were always so particular about people littering on the street, and the bins the trash going out at a certain time and all that kind of stuff. So this superhero cares about that kind of stuff, like making sure lawns are mowed properly, like the problems and stuff that the council wants is done properly. So that was just funny to me. And then it just seemed naturally to work into an animated sitcom.
Benji Samet: Yeah, so like you know, those little things are the things that caused him to become a superhero. But then, of course, being a big, fun show, things spiral out of control, and we’ve got monsters and aliens and anything else that we can think about, but the stories often just start with like, he’s really just focused on the mundane little thing. And like, the bigger threat is…
Dan Hernandez: …it always seems to spiral out of that one little thing that he is hyper focused on and then all of a sudden he’s fighting a monster or demon or something insane and that seems to be the formula that works for the show. And so we’ve really leaned into that combination of the very elevated, and the very low stakes banal suburban life.
 

Is Kevin is someone that we are supposed to care about connect with, or is he the Karen of the town?

Michael Cusack: Not a Karen, No. On the surface level, he is annoying, but he’s so passionate in what he believes in that you can’t fault him for it. He just wants to live in a clean nice town and clean nice suburb. So it’s like, you can’t really fault him but he’s, he’s a bit arrogant about a bit stubborn. So he’s not…
Benji Samet: It also comes from a place of love, like yeah, he loves his family. He loves his town, and he just wants the best for it and he doesn’t understand why everybody doesn’t love the town the way he does.
Michael Cusack: it’s almost like if he’s like, no one else is gonna do something about this. I’m gonna be the savior of the town.
Dan Hernandez: He’s often not rewarded for that dedication, most heroes never are, but he’s … and you learn more about him as the series goes on because it is serialized, you know, there is a real superhero story that’s getting told along with all this funny, crazy stuff. So I think that by the end of the season, I hope that people are almost surprised by how moved they are by his story and by the emotions that you’re feeling by the end it’s like, oh, this is a real superhero story and there are real stakes and it started so small and now we’re somewhere else completely, and it’s been an exciting journey to craft.
 

Can we always expect him to be like a lone wolf or is he gonna get a pack at some point?

Michael Cusack: Oh, no, he does have his allies. Just the people that he goes to the local bolo, which is like a bar in America, and he’s got his best mates there that support him and even make gadgets for him too. So he’s definitely got his support.
Dan Hernandez: He’s got a handful of friends that also believe in the cause. But at the same time, his family is often incredibly frustrated by his sort of commitment to this until they need Him. And then every now and then it’s like, well, you know, who actually would help me solve the problem that I’m having is Koala Man, I hate to say. So now he’s getting drawn in on some of these other stories that his family is having trouble dealing with. And so there are also episodes where he’ll team up with his wife or he’ll team up with his daughter to go and accomplish something. And it’s both the dynamic of the superhero persona but also it’s their annoying dad. So it’s always something that we come back to over and over because we tried to find also the truth in the family relationships as much as possible and sort of the, the universal experiences of having annoying dads and sort of moms who, you know, maybe feel stuck in their lives a little bit and things like that. So there’s always like a true emotion underlying sort of the events of the stories and where the stories start and where they end
 

So is his family aware of his dual life?

Benji Samet: Yes, which was very, it took us a while to choose
Dan Hernandez: it was a later development for sure.
Michael Cusack: But I do know and they’re embarrassed about it. That’s a very complicated, it’s almost like he’s going through a midlife crisis. And it’s just kind of going there just accepting it, although his son loves it you know, he’s just like, you know, in awe of his dad being a superhero
Dan Hernandez: His son loves it. His daughter’s like, if any of my friends at school find out that you’re Koala Man, I don’t know what I’m going to do. So, yeah. So there’s different levels to their relationship to Koala Man and sort of discovering that his family should know his identity really unlocked a lot for us because it made the home life so much richer. His wife who, you know still expects him to fix the broken table and you know, do sort of household chores, but also trying to be accepting of, okay, you know, Kevin is going through something right now, it happens to be a koala phase. Let’s see if he comes out of it.
Benji Samet: Like, Alright, I’m gonna be out all night patrolling the streets,
Dan Hernandez: when in fact, the streets are probably fine. But every now and then, there’s a monster. And so it’s that tension. I think that makes it really funny
 

Hugh Jackson is on the show. How did that happen?

Michael Cusack: It was insanely easy like way easier than we thought. So we shot for the stars and wanted to get him. We wrote a character specifically for him. Hoping we would get him, and to our luck, he was interested in the show because I guess his kids thought it was funny, which we thank you Hugh Jackman’s kids. And I guess you know, because it was an Australian show for American TV. I think it really piqued his interest too. So he knew about Dapto the small town it is set in, saying like I know Dapto
Benji Samet: it was the honestly the easiest Yes, we got of our entire cast, because he was just like yeah, I’m in. Yeah. Really a super nice guy and he couldn’t have been nicer and more supportive of the show and his performance is so fun. And he’s hilarious in every scene. He kills it..
 

Can you talk about his character?

Michael Cusack: Yeah, he’s like, the stereotypical like Australian man’s man. You know, he’s everyone. Everything Koala Man wishes he could be. He’s like, six feet six inches taller than him. He’s buffer. He’s cool. Everyone in town loves him.
Dan Hernandez: You know, his name is big Greg. Big Greg used to host Australia’s third most popular fishing show, Fishing Big with Big Greg. And he’s the mayor of the town, basically, and Koala Man, he’s jealous and envious of how other people see big Greg but he can’t quite admit that to himself. And so they have this tension throughout the series of really probably Big Greg saying something nice to Koala Man would be very meaningful to him, but he could never admit that and so they have this sort of rivalry or frenemy,
Michael Cusack: Greg isn’t a bad guy. Koala Man is just so jealous, so he sees him as like a bad guy. And he’s like, he’s just perfect.
Dan Hernandez: It would almost be easier if he were secretly a villain but but he’s seemingly just the greatest guy in town. Who everybody loves
Michael Cusack: which Hugh Jackman obviously plays up
 

Are you gonna give him a musical number?

Dan Hernandez: Oh yes, we weren’t gonna cast to Jackman and not find an occasion for for Big Greg to sing. And hopefully people will be seeing that soon but it was a very exciting day and the recording it was pretty awesome.
Michael Cusack: He was like trying to do musical too after it. It was so insane. That and then going to do Music Man.
Dan Hernandez: He was extremely extremely generous with his time and his support of the show. And he gave it his all and we wrote him some crazy lines to say that almost to the point where you’re like, Okay, this is the line where he was gonna be like, I’ve made a mistake. This is because I don’t want to associate with this. And he was totally game and he and Michael became really, you know, like, just had a connection right away and it’s really nice. It was a it was a really a dream experience with him when he was amazing. This next question
 

Can you talk about the other casting?

Dan Hernandez: So in a minute, we’re going to announce that there’s a really brilliant Australian comedian named Demi Lardner, who is playing his daughter Alison. She’s absolutely astoundingly funny. One of the funniest performances I’ve ever heard … and Koala Man’s wife is played by Sarah Snook, Succession‘s Shiv Roy. She is absolutely unbelievably funny. I think not everyone knows that she’s Australian. I think this is an opportunity and I think she similarly was like super excited to do an Australian show. She’s obviously you know, she’s Emmy nominated. She’s doing pretty good. She’s doing pretty well. But she really loved the show and units are connected. And just, again, someone that just wanted to be a part of it. And it was like a pretty easy, yes. And in spite of the fact that she’s on top of the world right now, she just loved the show. So we’re very excited … and there’s some other people that we will be announcing later. There’s other secret Australians. The cast is a bit of a who’s who of Australian actors and some really surprising amazing people not necessarily known for their comedy in some cases. Because, you know, huge actors and and we’re really excited to continue to unveil that but at the panel we will be announcing Demi.