Imagine Hitler telling you about flying rocket zombies on an island... in space! You have the start of Axe Cop and you can see what I'm talking about below in its WonderCon trailer. The ADHD panel at WonderCon gave us a closer look at what will be filling Saturday nights on Fox. This new animation collective will feature some eccentric cartoon genius , but it's tent pole will be six episodes of the Axe Cop cartoon. Ethan Nicolle, co- creator of Axe Cop was kind enough to talk with me about his new series after an exhausting day.
Here's the preview of Axe Cop that was shown at the panel. I'm already swept away by the animation, voice-acting and plot. I think it will expand to be one of the best cartoon series out there.
The panel wasn't filled to the brim with people, but this might be the the second fan event that ADHD has ever had. Nothing has really been shown, but a few clips of what's going to come out, so expect hype to grow for this series of cartoons on fox. It wasn't just Ethan up there, but many people from ADHD including Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser from Drawn Together who are now Executive producers on Axe Cop. Ben Jones, creative director and Nick Weidenfeld head of ADHD.
First off the panel was funny because grown men must depend on a little boy named Malachi to finish episodes of Axe Cop. Axe Cop was co-created by Ethan's much younger brother Malachi whose probably at best age 7 now. Matt Silverstein, other than saying, "It's the best thing I've been apart of ", told stories of how Malachi would be called in to figure out episodes. As a nice touch, Malachi receives video game credit for either the PSN or Xbox Live network for every call he takes from ADHD. What was amazing to hear from all the tales was how much Malachi has a voice in the show. The ADHD panelists talked with great enthusiasm as how Malachi's vision is put in the show and how funny it is to work with a little kid. The kid even lends his voice as the opening narrator for each episode. Which for one episode wasn't going well. That's when Ethan suggested giving his younger brother aviator sunglasses. The sunglasses worked and for some reason when you look cool you keep cool, for Malachai at least.
Another episode of Malachai's "ideas" was when he wouldn't do anything because a game he was promised wasn't given to him. He eventually just started to do a old man voice over the phone with the ADHD crew much to their annoyance, but they still took it as a joke. Where else will you have a kid calling the shots.When the crew had had trouble writing the motivation for Bad Santa, a bad version of Santa, a quick call to Malachi made sense of the situation. Bad Santa wants to kill God and become Jesus, obvious to the co-creator and blowing the minds of the ADHD staff. Only Malachi knows, but the British will be despised in Axe Cop. The King of England appears to be the most evil person so far in the series.
For some reason ADHD can't say Nick Offerman is the voice of Axe Cop even though everyone has figured it out already. What was announced at the panel was that many cast members of both Breaking Bad and Mad Men will be doing voice cameos. Classic British actors will be reduced to saying the dumbest lines possible. Ken Marino, is flute cop, until he changes into something else, it happens quite often in the comics. Sockarang is voiced by Pattown Oswalt. Every women will be voiced by Megan Mullally.
What stands out is also the dedication for the show to be done seriously. Axe Cop will be done like a action movie. Every one is dead serious no matter if they are a talking piece of poo or just saying the silliest lines possible, it's all done straight.
The panelists put an interesting spin on the rest of Fox animation, where some have worked before. Writers don't meet with animators at Fox and that's not how it works with ADHD. ADHD even made a nice show reel about showing off stuff at WonderCon before taking questions and talking about Axe Cop. They literally put a WonderCon panel into the animation reel. It's a new outfit on Sunset with 75 people on staff creating content all the time. Axe Cop is set in stone, but the rest of the content for ADHD is left floating. Nick Weidenfeld whose in charge of ADHD seems unsure of what the content of ADHD will be fully, but has the drive and the experience to develop it into something special. Many favorite internet cartoonists have made their way to ADHD's offices. Even now if you check their tumblr you'll see gifs they made for fans for free.Look for ADHD on Fox this Summer right after Comic-Con. I'll be sure to update you on more news about it.
