Golan the Insatiable is returning to Fox this Sunday, May 31.
Originally produced for Fox’s Animation Domination HD IN 2013 as a series of six animated shorts, Golan the Insatiable was picked up as a half comedy by Fox and given a chance to make a place for itself on the classic Sunday night Animation Domination block.
The title character of Golan the Insatiable is a warlord from another dimension who finds himself stuck in Oak Grove, Minnesota and living with the Beekler family. Golan’s only real friend is Dylan, the youngest daughter of the Beeklers who loves causing havoc with Golan.
For the first season of shorts, Golan was voiced by series creator Josh Miller; with Mary Mack as Dylan. For the new season on Fox, Golan will now be portrayed for by former Daily Show correspondent Rob Riggle; while Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) is taking over as the voice of Dylan.
Ahead of Sunday’s season premiere of Golan the Insatiable, CraveOnline caught up with Miller for some background on the series, his favorite lines for Golan and a taste of what’s coming up this season.
CraveOnline: For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, tell us what Golan the Insatiable is about.
Josh Miller: It’s a about Golan the Insatiable, Godlord Terrible of Gkruool – the demigod tyrant of a violent ‘swords & sorcery’ dimension, who accidentally becomes stranded in the quiet town of Oak Grove, Minnesota. He is befriended by Dylan Beekler, a twisted and misanthropic 9-year-old girl. Unlike everyone else, Dylan views Golan’s arrival as awesome and assumes that he is going to lay waste to the town and enslave everyone. But hundreds of years of being on top has left Golan lazy, and he quickly becomes distracted. So Dylan is really the evil driving force of the show, coaxing Golan into becoming a mighty oppressor again.
What inspired this story? And how long have you been working on it?
Like a great many things, Golan was something of an accident, birthed in the sweaty panic of a looming deadline. Back in 2010, I was writing humor pieces for SomethingAwful.com, and I had a story due. I’d been reading a collection of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories at the time. I liked the idea of a character who could’ve been a villain from a rough pulp fantasy world – the kind of character a muscly hero would normally overthrow. Using the somewhat hacky logic of “what is the exact opposite of this guy?” I decided to put him in what is essentially my hometown – a suburb in Minnesota. And it seemed funny to me to have the piece be in the form of a “letter to the editor” that Golan had submitted to the local paper, the gag being that this once fearsome warlord was now wasting his time bitching about small town minutia to a paper no one reads.
It’s ridiculous for me now that Golan’s on TV, and has changed very little from that first story, because I wrote it so fast that I honestly wasn’t even sure if I liked it. Then I saw the artwork for piece (reproduced below), which was by a great and funky Scottish lass named Ali Horn. I loved her visual rendition of Golan. Immediately I wanted to write another piece. When the opportunity to pitch it as a show popped up, I’d been writing about Golan and the world of Oak Grove for a couple years already. So I’d had plenty of time to explore it all.
Do you have a favorite line from your time as Golan’s voice?
In the episode “A Pox On Your Pox”, I snuck in an homage to the Hellraiser franchise, when Golan threatens a little girl with “Down the dark decades of pain, this will seem like a memory of heaven.” I don’t sound as cool as Pinhead though. But the line I enjoyed repeatedly saying the most was simply yelling Dylan’s name. I don’t get asked to do Golan’s voice that often, but when I do I usually just yell “Dyyyylaaaaann!”
And do you have a favorite line from Rob’s first season in the role?
“Get outta here, ya piece of garbage. I love ya.” Which is from the episode “Shame on Pee,” and probably makes no sense out of context. Riggle weighs about two of me. As a former marine, he is a lot more masculine in his vocal quality, so I laugh the most when when his inner man’s-man can creep out. My Golan was a giant baby basically. Riggle’s Golan, you can sort of imagine how, way back when, he actually commanded an army.
Will Dylan incorporate more of Plaza’s dry sense of humor, or keep her more manic persona from season 1?
Dylan is staying very much the same. Aubrey really responded to the character, which despite that dark outsider aspect, is very different than her dry and cynical character on Parks and Rec. Dylan has a sour attitude, but she also has a lot of energy and is very motivated. It was fun to see Aubrey go to the sillier, little kid places Dylan thrives in after watching her for years as April Ludgate.
How would you define Golan and Dylan’s relationship? She strikes me as a mix of hypeman and little sister for him.
Exactly. Golan is the fun older brother Dylan always wanted. He tolerates her, barely, and is mean to her. But you can still sense that there is a bond there. For us that is what makes the show work and gives us license for Golan to be as terrible to Dylan as we want. Because in a way it is all a front. They’re playing, not unlike Calvin & Hobbes. The big difference being that Golan is real and people get maimed and die during their games.
Keeping that dynamic between them was extremely important to us when moving to primetime, because Fox has had such astronomical success with animated shows centered on a dad and his family. And there was definitely discussion of Golan coming into the house and wanting to be the patriarch — especially because the character of Richard was left behind when we retooled the show. I know our existing fans are trepidatious about the new episodes, and the tweaking that was done, but above anything else I think keeping the Golan’s dynamic with Dylan and the Beeklers in that older brother position is the most crucial factor for the show. And that has stayed the same.
Tease some of the stories you have coming up on the new expanded season.
We’ve got a good array of craziness. My writing partner Patrick Casey and I tend to be drawn to ideas that focus on Golan and Dylan having adventures you might normally see on a kids show, only with horrific consequences. A good example of that is “Winter is Staying,” in which Golan erroneously assumes that if they sabotage the town’s Spring Equinox Festival he can cause winter to last forever. Our showrunners Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein love pushing how insane the stories can be. So we have an episode where Golan becomes pregnant to make himself popular with teenagers, which is an idea I love, since my girlfriend watches those creepy 16 and Pregnant shows.
What were some of the challenges of switching over from 10 minute shorts to 22 minute episodes?
The biggest challenge was that on the 10 minute show, we didn’t need to service the supporting cast. We could use them as little or as much as was necessary for the story. The show was just Golan and Dylan. When we expanded to 22 minutes, especially joining the Sunday night line-up, we needed the supporting cast to step up. You need B, even C storylines. So even though we were going into our second season, we had to go back and figure out how to use the rest of the Beeklers in ways that wouldn’t feel like simply killing time until Dylan and Golan were back on the screen. Keith, Alexis’ boyfriend, was our big discovery. He only had like three lines total in season one. But he’s a really funny character.
One of the things that struck me about your original first episode was how laid back everyone was about Golan. As if it was no big deal that the giant monster had moved into town. Was that always part of the series pitch?
Yeah. My analogy when pitching the show was that Golan had been around long enough now that it was like having an alligator wandering the streets. You’d still be nervous if you saw it, but you wouldn’t be like, “Oh shit a fucking alligator!!!!” The Minnesota setting was always part of the idea too. ”Minnesota Nice.” In Minnesota that term is sarcastic, highlighting the nice-on-the-surface atmosphere of the area that Fargo makes such great use of. But we’re using it in a literal sense. The idea being that if Golan had landed anywhere else, the army would’ve been called in a long time ago. But the citizens of Oak Grove feel it is their philosophical duty as Minnesotans to tolerate him.
For this second season, Fox wanted a new premise pilot, where we see Golan arrive. So now we do get to see a little bit of those early reactions before the town becomes desensitized.
It seems like Alexis is the one of the few people who actually hates Golan, despite his crush on her. Does that continue in the new season?
Oh yeah. Though Fox was a little creeped out by Golan’s perviness towards her. So that’s downplayed for now. (We’ll work it back in slowly though. Ssshh, don’t tell Fox.) But Golan continues to want to hang out with Alexis. And she continues to view him as she should, her annoying little sister’s even more annoying friend.
How will you be expanding the town of Oak Grove on Fox?
We’re taking it a little slow, trying to find our new characters the organic way, seeing which bit parts turn out funny. Every show wants to get their own Springfield, but we’re fighting the urge to force it and add a zillion characters right off the bat. And we want to keep Oak Grove small. Whereas The Simpsons was able to get a lot of humor out of the fact that Springfield could be as big or small as it needed to be for an episode, I think the fixed quaintness of Oak Grove is part of the concept. It isn’t supposed to be Everytown USA. And given Golan’s access to magic, it’s not like it is hard to work in any absurd idea we might have.
Do you have any closing thoughts for potential viewers of Golan the Insatiable?
It both tickles and scares me to say that this is hands down the weirdest show Fox has ever put on Sunday nights – both conceptually and in animation style. And, rightfully so, I’m sure Fox is trepidatious for those very reasons. We only have six episodes, so they’re testing the waters. Fox is the only broadcast network that does adult animation. They only show their animation on Sunday nights. And I think they’ve been burnt a lot over the years when they deviate from shows centered on out-of-shape dads.
People like to bag on network TV, but they go where the viewers lead them. And Fox has been taking some cool chances of late. This is all a roundabout way of saying that if you want broadcast TV to try different things with animation, you should check out Golan. Fox has always been the stranger and more interesting of the Big Four networks. Now, with the recent success of the unorthodox Last Man on Earth, if Golan is successful too, we could see a sea change in overall content. So… WATCH OR DIE!!!
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Golan the Insatiable premieres this Sunday, May 31 on Fox.
