JJ Villard is best known for being the first person to win an Emmy for animation on Adult Swim with his series King Star King, which was his animation debut. Now the creator has made a new series and is bringing it to the Cartoon Network adult line-up as well.
His new show is called JJ Villard's Fairy Tales, and it is a twisted take on commonplace fairy tales that features horror icons like Linda Blair and Robert Englund. While the animator is happy to have a new show on the network, Netflix has also brought him on board to create a series for them as well.
Since we recently had the opportunity to speak with JJ Villard, we decided to go into detail about both of his new shows. Take a look at what Villard had to say for yourself below!
Joe: Can you share anything about the behind the scenes process for making the show?
JJ Villard: There’s a few things. We finished three weeks ahead of schedule which is insane being that its the first season and there’s no recurring characters - each character you know is designed for its own episode and to finish three weeks ahead is crazy to me.
And we finished under budget so I had money to waste that I didn’t know by the time the show ended. And it sucks because it goes back to the studio, but I could’ve used that money somehow! I just didn’t know, we were being so productive that we came in under budget for the first season of a cartoon. That is like something I should be awarded for.
Joe: And that will definitely help you inform your work on season 2 and going forward based on how this one went and what you can utilize in the future.
JJ Villard: Also, working at Cartoon Network Studios was so much fun. I mean all of the people there, there’s a good energy, there’s a friendly competitiveness, I mean there’s a history there that’s just so awesome. And you can feel Mike Lazzo’s touch on Powerpuff Girls and all the other great cartoons that have come and gone with Adult Swim and Cartoon Network.
Joe: Yeah, being surrounded by talent like that, I can only imagine.
JJ Villard: Yeah, and we were wrapping the show and a lot of people get curious about the fairy tale thing you know, and like I had many studios wanting to work with me because they heard that I was doing Fairy Tales. So I’m doing a new TV show with Netflix right now, so we’re going to see how Fairy Tales does with the ratings and hopefully we get a second season but if not, I’m working hard with Netflix right now on a new show so we’ll see how that turns out too.
Joe: Can you say anything else about the new show you’re working on for Netflix?
JJ Villard: Yeah it’s adult animation which is awesome, and it’s with streaming through the Netflix service obviously. But its just insane how just five years ago that Adult Swim had the monopoly on adult cartoons, but now there’s like all these new places that want to do Adult Cartoons. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Quibi - there’s just so many more places and it’s just like “Woah, hell yes! It’s a good time to be in cartoons!”
Joe: Yeah, it seems like it’s just skyrocketing especially with the surge of fans for Rick and Morty and them and them reaching out to look for similar shows has got to help greenlight a lot of these projects.
JJ Villard: Yeah, and dude think about this, we really are the cockroaches in the atom bomb, you know? A virus hits the world and who survives in showbusiness? F***ing animators. We’re the ones that are keeping s*** moving full speed.
Joe: Is the current epidemic going to affect production or release in any way?
JJ Villard: It did affect things. We were going to shoot live action commercials for television and social media and those were all cancelled so I ended up drawing more stuff for the marketing, and also I shot in my basement some stuff for marketing which should be coming out any day now. It was really cool and Adult Swim was really happy with what I shot. Because I don’t usually shoot live action stuff. It’s like my version of Cryptkeeper meets Jihad, you’ll see.
JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales is a new, twisted, fun take on the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White. The charm and cuteness of the original stories remain, but now they've been updated and packaged into a ball of raw, visceral, gross weirdness.
The animated quarter hour series is created, and executive produced by JJ Villard (King Star King) and produced by Cartoon Network Studio.
JJ Villard's Fairy Tales premieres on Adult Swim Sunday, May 10th at 12:15 AM. (Sunday leading into Monday.)