Forget 'Game of Thrones,' Matt Groening reveals unlikely inspiration behind new animated fantasy series 'Disenchantment'
The Simpsons mastermind Matt Groening will launch his first new show in 20 years with Disenchantment, which bows on his new home, Netflix, this week. Like his sci-fi spoof Futurama, the new animated series is firmly planted in genre — medieval fantasy, specifically — following the exploits of a drunken princess (Abbi Jacobson) and her elf (Nat Faxon) and demon (Eric Andre) sidekicks.
And while there’s the odd Iron Throne joke, Groening swears the show was not created to spoof HBO’s wildly popular Game of Thrones.
“It’s from growing up with fairy tales and fantasy and all the rest of that,” Groening told us recently at San Diego Comic-Con (watch above). “I was particularly inspired as a kid by Rocky and Bullwinkle. And in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show there were ‘Fractured Fairy Tales.’ And I thought, ‘Oh man, this would be great to do as a grownup.’”
In fact, Groening says, he and his creative team steered away from contemporary shows like GoT that play in that sandbox.
“We didn’t want to be influenced. In fact, we had a rule that certain major fantasy shows that you might be familiar with, we said we’re not going to do any more jokes, other than ones we already thought of. There’s a few references to things you might be familiar with, but [mostly] we went the other way.
“With Disenchantment, we’ve taken the idea of fantasy, we plotted it like it was a drama, and then we added jokes. If you think you know what this show is gonna be, based on what we’ve done in the past, you don’t know. It’s gonna be different.”
Disenchantment premieres Friday on Netflix.
Watch Groening talk about Disney’s acquisition of Fox and his move to Netflix:
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