At this year’s WonderCon, Olan Rogers, creator and star of TBS’ Final Space sat down for a round table interview where he told us about his inspirations, the tone of the series, and what he put into the characters.
When we asked Rogers about his inspiration for Final Space, he said, “A lot of the inspiration for that wasn’t necessarily TV, but more feature, so it was like Star Wars, Star Trek, Sunshine, Interstellar, Moon, 2001: A Space Odyssey, all of those kind of combined to a very cinematic thing I wanted to do with this. You’ll definitely see it as it goes on, it get’s more cinematic and epic.”
We followed up on the epic, dramatic nature of the series, and asked Rogers if the serious elements sets it apart from other adult-oriented animated series, “Yeah, totally, and I think once you see, and I’m so excited because after [episode] five, you’re gonna really start seeing the dramatic take the front seat and the comedy kind of take a little bit of a back seat” Rogers said, adding that “It really kind of starts setting itself apart from those other animations.”
We also asked if he wanted to see the animation industry follow his lead and start producing more dramatic cartoons for adults, to which he said “I don’t think so, I think there’s animation for everybody, I think this is just something that I particularly wanted to see, and I watch every animation out there, and I think there’s moods for every different which one and I wouldn’t want it to all go that direction, but let’s see if people dig it and if they do, it’d be cool if a few more go that way.”
In addition to creating the series, Rogers also provides the voice for the main character, Gary Goodspeed, who has a lot of ridiculous catchphrases. A promotional video revealed that one of his sayings, “tough titty whompus,” came from Rogers’ mother, so we asked about the origins of Gary’s other ridiculous catchphrases. “A lot of them were just riffing in the booth,” Rogers said, “that one in particular [“tough titty whompus”] I was like, I wanna give a little nod to my mom, ’cause she says that all the frigging time.”
Final Space originally started as a series of internet shorts, then became a pilot that was so well-received, it was part of a multi-network bidding war. We asked Rogers about this experience, “That’s dream scenario, you hope that can happen, but it was a little bit of a surreal moment to experience that, because it was like, ‘Is everybody joking? What is going on?!’ because I had been working for a decade online and nobody gave me the time of day and then all of a sudden, everybody wanted something to do with me. So, it was a very surreal moment, and yeah, I just hope I don’t screw it up.”
Rogers voices two other characters, Mooncake and Tribore, so we asked which of his three roles was the most fun to voice, and which was his favorite character in general. “Gary takes a lot of energy out of me,” he started, “and Mooncake is a blast because its just such a cute little thing. I think Tribore the funnest, the funny thing is, in the first three episodes, everybody’s like ‘this character, I’m not sure about him,’ but when he comes back, I’m telling you, he will be everybody’s favorite character, cuz he’s very sassy and into himself, and it’s a really funny character.”
We also asked Rogers about his plans for future projects, wether animated or otherwise. “That’s the hope, ultimately it just depends on how well Final Space does – I think it’s doing great right now – so down the road, yeah. I think I have too many ideas, so I’m trying to keep focusing on this.”
We ended with a silly question, inquiring about Gary’s obsession with cookies, and if hunger was a factor when that scene was being written. Rogers gave a intriguingly deep answer to the question, “The idea behind the cookie stuff was – you guys every see Zombieland? With the twinkie? – I just love that idea of somebody being obsessed with the most mundane thing, and it was just also an idea to create insanity, like this guy’s insane, like he wants a freakin’ cookie.”
You can watch Final Space on the TBS app now and be sure catch the return on April 9th.
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