disenchantment
time and tide Wait For no Womanw w w.sci fi n ow.co.u k |^069
Matt GroeninG fans have been
eagerly awaiting Disenchantment even before
they knew it existed, and for good reason:
when it hits Netflix this summer, it will be
Groening’s first new show in 20 years. His
premiere show, The Simpsons, is still going
strong, but since cult hit Futurama left TV
screens in 2013 there’s been a big new show-
shaped hole to fill.
Groening had been sitting on the idea
for Disenchantment for years before he
finally started developing it into something
watchable. “It was just percolating in
his head,” says executive producer Josh
Weinstein, who has been working with
Groening since Season Three of The
Simpsons. “We’ve really worked together
on and off for over 25 years. When we were
working on the latest version of Futurama,
we would keep saying to each other: ‘Oh,
we’ve got to do something together.’”
Weinstein had just finished working on
children’s animated adventure series Gravity
Falls when Groening contacted him with
the idea for Disenchantment. “It worked
out perfectly,” he explains. “He said: ‘Hey,
I have this show, do you want to help me
develop it and work on it?’ And I was like:
‘Of course.’ Matt has these notebooks full of
ideas and drawings and we took his basic
idea and fleshed out the whole world, all the
characters, this type of storytelling that we
wanted to do, which was very different from
The Simpsons and Futurama, and all that. It
took over a year to flesh things out before we
even started with the writers.”
The new idea also stemmed from the
fact that they have already satirised the
present day in The Simpsons and the future
in Futurama. “The next obvious move was
going into the past, to get the same type of
humour that we like,” says Weinstein.
Disenchantment follows Bean (Abbi
Jacobson), the drinking, gambling princess
of a magical medieval kingdom called
Dreamland, as she grapples with growing up
in a patriarchal society while just wanting
to be independent, have fun and be happy.
Things look bleak for her when she’s forced
to marry a prince from a neighbouring
kingdom. But on her wedding day she meets
a sarcastic demon named Luci (Eric André),
and Elfo (Nat Faxon), an elf from a nearby
woodland community who’s just sick of
eating candy and being cheerfully oblivious
all the damn time. Through sheer chance,
Bean, Luci and Elfo quickly form an unlikelyalliance and help each other through a series
of adventures over the course of the ten-
episode season.
“It’s kind of a weird unlikely friendship,”
says Weinstein. “You’re thrown together
with these people who seem like they
wouldn’t get along, but they end up doing
just that. Elfo represents the optimistic
young person who’s really sheltered. He grew
up in this place, Elfwood, where elves never
leave, but he became one of the first elves
to leave, so he represents the young person
who’s been sheltered all their life and wants
to go out in the world. Luci represents the
young person who has their first job and is
probably going to screw up a lot, but has a
lot of confidence. Bean represents the person
who’s been squelched all their life because
she’d grown up in a patriarchal kingdom, but
she wants to branch out on her own and be
her own person. So through the combination
of her friends, they all sort of help each other
find their way even though they all have
their different personalities.”
Something that greatly interested
Weinstein as far as the trio of stars who voice
the main characters are concerned is the fact
that each of them is a writer and director as
well as an actor. “They bring the extra level
of comedy and intelligence to everything,” he
tells us. “When we give them a line, you can
tell that their writer brains are working as
well as their actor brains, so they’re making
the line as good as it can be. It brings this
incredible comedic ability to the characters
that we love.”
Though Disenchantment takes inspiration
from medieval fantasies that came before
it, it’s not setting out to parody them. The
same is true for its heroes. “We said if we’re
going to do a show – because there’s been
a thousand fantasy shows, films and books- it has to be distinctive, it has to be about
something, and this show really is a coming-
of-age story,” Weinstein says. “The three
main characters, Bean, Luci and Elfo, are all
around 18, 19, 20 years old. So the theme of
the show is when you’re that age going out
into the world for the first time.
The writers and creators were adamant
about not falling to the trap of repeating all
the pre-existing tropes and legends that have
already been done. “When my friends and I
were 20 we were like, we don’t want to have
to listen to the adults saying how we have to
behave. It’s really about how you make your
own way in the world and it ends up coming
disenchantment
time and tide Wait For no WomanMatt GroeninG’s unique brand of coMedy heads
froM the future to a MaGical Medieval kinGdoM
this suMMer in his new show, disenchantMent. we
talk to executive producer Josh weinstein about
what to expect...
WORds poppy-Jay palMer