The Animation Domination series’ co-creators and EPs open up about genre experiments, character evolution, and the joys of storytelling in uncertain times, in the latest season of their FOX animated comedy.
With Season 5 of 20th Television Animation’s animated comedy,, underway as part of FOX’s Animation Domination Sunday programming block, AWN once again got a chance to speak with co-creators and executive producers Wendy and Lizzie Molyneux.Yes, they are sisters.
Animated by Bento Box Entertainment, the show, which debuted on FOX in January 2021, follows the Alaskan adventures of the Tobin family.As a single dad, Beef (Nick Offerman, , ) does his best to keep his bunch of kids close – especially his only daughter, Judy (Jenny Slate, ), whose artistic dreams lead her away from the family fishing boat and into the glamorous world of the local mall.Rounding out the family are Judy’s older brother, Wolf (Will Forte, ); his fiancé, Honeybee (Dulcé Sloan, ); Judy’s middle brother, Ham (Paul Rust, ); and 10-year-old-going-on-50 little brother, Moon (Aparna Nancherla, ).
While the children’s mother is not in the picture, Judy seeks guidance from her new boss, Alyson (Megan Mullally, ), and her imaginary friend, Alanis Morissette (guest-voicing as herself), who appears to her in the Northern Lights.The creatives shared their insights on the new season, including some interesting genre experiments, finally telling stories they couldn’t in earlier years, and what they love about their show and its unique, quirky characters.AWN: Wendy Molyneux: I think the characters have become more fun to write than ever before.
Once you've lived with them for a few years, you can really push them.Ham, for example, gets a temporary singing gig at a local pizza place that leads to a wild interpersonal journey.And we’re doing some fun genre episodes — a creature feature horror episode, for instance, which was super fun to write and really challenging to animate and score.
Lizzy Molyneux: A lot of these genre ideas come from our writers' own passions.Carlee [Malemute], who wrote the horror episode, is a genuine horror fan.Another writer, Kevin [Seccia], started an episode as a Western standoff.
Asha, who loves ‘90s rom coms, wrote one that follows a romantic arc and involves Alanis Morissette.We all bring our tastes to the table — sometimes literally.We play a movie game at lunch where we compete over film knowledge! AWN: WM: We start with a pretty blank page.
There are a few “wells” we draw from: Alaskan stories, things from our lives, and new experiences from our writers.If we come in too prescriptive, it kind of kills the vibe.We want to feel like anything is possible.
LM: That said, there are always ideas that carry over.Some stories just don’t fit until a certain season.This year, we’re telling a story about Honeybee and Wolf’s relationship that we wouldn’t have done in the early seasons — it deals with a type of conflict that only comes up after living together for a while.
WM: Right.Even though we’re technically still in the show’s “first year,” it’s our fifth year writing the characters.So, we can go deeper.
And Ham also has a big journey this year — one we’ve had in our back pockets for a long time.AWN: WM: Nothing huge across the board, but we’re pushing things more this year.There’s an episode where Aunt Dirt [Jane Lynch] and Moon explore a –style world.
That let us play with new animation styles.We also have episodes that lean into noir, rom com, and others where we just went for different looks.LM: A lot of those visuals start during story development.
The episode is a good example — we debated how much to change the look, and our team came back with ideas that really expanded what we were imagining.We get so much from our directors and storyboard artists that enhances the final episode in ways we never would’ve predicted.WM: Yeah, and our crew is incredible.
Sometimes we worry we’re overloading them.There are episodes this season with nearly all-new backgrounds, which is usually something you avoid in a show like this because you want to reuse assets.But we pushed.
And our director, Derek Schroeder, suggested adding time-lapses to the new backgrounds — so each one would look different.That kind of initiative makes the episodes look even better than we imagined.AWN: LM: We often draw from real experiences — ours or our writers.’ Even when the plot comes from a quirky idea, we always ground it in emotional truth.
That’s what connects with people.WM: I have four kids, and they’re constantly doing things that make me laugh and wonder what’s going on in their heads.One time they covered the bathroom in cilantro.
Not exactly emotional, but wild in a way that’s relatable.And real-life interactions — like a man screaming “I’m not mad at you!” at me in a parking lot — those are gold.Real emotions are inherently funny.
AWN: With the industry in such a volatile state, do you still feel creatively driven? WM: It seems like nothing’s falling into place these days.But we can still make a show that’s humanistic, that promotes tolerance and kindness.It can still be funny and do those things.
LM: There was a lot of anxiety this past year, and creating this show has given us a space to focus on something joyful.We poured that energy into every episode.It’s our way of holding onto hope and fun and sharing that with our audience.
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
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