Fans of Justin Roiland (Solar Opposites) and Dan Harmon's (Community) Adult Swim series Rick and Morty are well aware of the wacky nature of the show. Still, it came as a fun surprise when viewers were treated to Bushworld Adventures, an Australian spin-off.episode.
Roiland employed celebrated Youtube animator and creator Michael Cusack (Yolo: Crystal Fantasy) to animate the episode, lending his unique artistic style that oddly fits right in with the world of Rick Sanchez and his grandson. We recently spoke with Cusack in support of his new Adult Swim series Yolo: Crystal Fantasy.
We learned about Cusack's career trajectory as well as his experience with Bushworld Adventures and how it came to be. If you're interested in hearing the audio component of our interview with Michael Cusack, you can do so via the podcast player below. We discuss Bushworld Adventures around 02:40.
Literary Joe: How do you think Bushworld Adventures was inspired by Yolo? Technically, Yolo came out first, right?
Michael Cusack: Yeah, so, Yolo was actually one of the first animations I ever did. I think it was 2012, and it was just when I started to learn animation.
I came from a filmmaking background. From 2009 to about 2012, I tried to make a feature film, and I was very into people like Kevin Smith, David Lynch, and Edgar Wright. All of these people that made films when they were quite young. And I wanted to do that. And I did make a feature film called All Night Gaming. And it's no Clerks. (Laughs) It didn't blow up like one of those movies. But from that, I wanted to get into something different, so that's when I got into animation. And I made Yolo.
The film I made was based on a lot of Australian characters. We have a big clubbing scene where girls go out like "let's get trashed; let's go club in Willingong!" My local town is Willingong, and you would just see a horde of people who would go out clubbing pretty much every night it seemed. And I always wanted to make a video of my town and the people in it, so that's where Yolo came from. Yolo came from that, and the kind of people that would go out on the town here, as you would say.
And from that little cartoon I did, it got some success online. I made some other cartoons about Australiana and stuff. And I think that got the attention of people like Justin Roiland and Adult Swim for Bushworld Adventures. So that was a little trajectory, I guess.
Literary Joe: Nice! Now I'm curious about your unique animation style. Have you been drawing that way your entire life?
Michael Cusack: I've been drawing my entire life, but I don't think I've been drawing that way my entire life. It's funny you ask that because I've recently been looking back and seeing how my art style developed. When I look at the stuff I drew when I was a real young kid, like 8 or 10, it looks similar, but it's much more crude. I guess it's kind of like South Park meets The Simpsons, which is kind of what it is now.
But I was also inspired by, when it comes to the art style, I think it was a merge of things like The Simpsons and South Park, and things I grew up with. But also like online animators like Eagle Raptor, Psychic Pebble, and all those kinds of animators were a massive inspiration to me around that era when I made Yolo, like 2011 or 2012. So those kind of merged to make my style.
But I'm always trying to develop it and hone it because I really don't feel like I've got a style. It's just like whatever I can get away with, and I'll try to draw that better next time.
Literary Joe: Well, it was unique enough to catch the eye of Justin Roiland, and that means something!
Michael Cusack: Yeah, that was an honor. What I try to do with animation is I try to get better at the writing, too, because I think that's a big part of it. And I'm not the best writer or animator, but I am aware that if you're at least okay at some of this stuff, you develop a unique style.
And I'm lucky enough to be Australian too, that adds to it as well. If I was an American guy inspired by all of that stuff I mentioned previously, I probably wouldn't have made it. But yeah, all of this stuff adds up.
*This interview has been edited for clarity.*
Yolo: Crystal Fantasy premieres on Adult Swim this Sunday, August 9th, at midnight. You can watch the first episode now here.