Interview: Drawn Together’s Matt Silverstein

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Drawn Together is back, after it’s three year span on Comedy Central with a new direct-to-DVD movie. Created by David Jeser and Matt Silverstein, the show lasted from October 2004 to November 2007, as it featured copyright safe animated characters in a reality series. On the eve of the film’s release, Matt Silverstein took time to talk with us at Killer Film about the project.

Jon: In the Season 3 commentary tracks, you guy stated you were in talks then for this film. Can you explain the how the film came to be? Was it a hard sell to Paramount/CC to fund the DTV, since they canceled the show?

Matt Silverstein: Yeah, that was like three years ago or something. It was one of those things were they were waiting for a better show to make a movie from, and it didn’t happen. (laughs) They were like, “F*ck, all we have is Drawn Together!” They came to us and we [myself and David Jeser] didn’t want to do it, unless we could come up with the right story. Let’s end this series the right way, because the ending sucked! The last episode was a clip show with d*ck jokes. That’s no way to end the series, so we thought of this storyline and got a lot of our frustrations out.

We went back to Comedy Central and told them we had this story, let’s do this. Then they were like “could you do this for a 1/3 of the cost of the series?” So we had to find out how to do this faster and cheaper. It took a long time, and we’re glad it’s finally coming out this Tuesday.

Jon: Despite the lower budget, I thought the animation didn’t suffer at all.

Matt: Well, thanks. We had to switch animation studios, which was a shame because we loved the shows original animation studio, but we worked with a new one, and they did a pretty cool job.

Jon: Did Comedy Central take any offense to the constant in-jokes about the cancellation or where they game with the satirical nature of the script?

Matt: So cool about it. Our main contact there got it, and she thought it was really funny. I think Comedy Central was more scared of us goofing on South Park, then anything else. We were goofing on them, but we mostly goofing on how people compared Drawn Together to South Park. If we had points-of-views and commentary like them, we would’ve been bigger. But that’s not what we wanted to do. Rumor has it, those guys [Trey Parker and Matt Stone] won’t be happy with this.

Jon: Really?

Matt: You would think so, huh? Those guys who are constantly picking on people, don’t really have a good sense of humor when it gets thrown back on them. They’ve been told how great they are for years, so…

Jon: The show is known for being pretty outrageous and brash, but was there anything in the film, outside what you’ve mentioned on the DVD about the 3D sex scene, that you guys or Comedy Central felt was going to far for the film?

Matt: There were a lot of discussions. A lot! They weren’t too pleased about how much sex Captain Hero was having with a dead girl. In particular, there was a really quick scene of other superheroes having sex with her, all in ten seconds, and we fought for months to keep that montage. We could get sued and there are so many reasons why we shouldn’t do that, and while we did make changes to it, like making it a little bit cleaner. Ultimately, we got it all in on this DVD, with a lot of lead way. We love the guys at Comedy Central and then knew what we wanted to do.

Jon: That’s great you got it all in, and a lot of times when DVD’s proclaim it is uncensored, it really doesn’t feel right, you know, for that show. I’m thinking of The Simpsons movie when they showed Bart’s penis. It felt out-of-place, unlike your film, and even with your reputation, everything felt correct. How did you get Seth McFarlane involved?

Matt: Thanks, man, really. Actually, Seth is someone we knew for a while, and now we’re working [with him] on The Cleveland Show. He’s just always been really supportive and a great guy. If we did this movie, we wanted a chance to reach a broader audience and having him in it, would really help us. We asked him, and he said: “Of course.” He recorded it and he didn’t need to do this for the $800 he made for it! (laughs)

Jon: Did he look at the character or the dialogue and improvise anything, or did he stick right with your script?

Matt: He read it and did it. He’s brilliant at improv, as we worked with him on Crank Yankers, as some of his prank calls were he best, but no he stuck with the script. He’s a busy guy, you know, he can’t be standing around changing things, he’s a very busy man.

Jon: I felt the film successfully took the 18 minute running time of the show and expanded it to 70 minutes. There are other animated shows that failed at this. What was the hardest part of expanding the show into the additional 50 minutes?

Matt: We actually approached it as a movie, and follow it structurally as a movie. A lot of our shows were stuffed too tight, as we stuffed so much story into them, that they were like jammed tight, screaming at you, rushing it all. We were happy to allow it to breathe more, expanding the story, and approaching as a movie defiantly helped us. Also, we hadn’t written a Drawn Together in a few years, so we weren’t caught in the rut of writing the shows then the movie. About 70 minutes is enough anyway of Drawn Together. (laughs)

Jon: Is that why Greg Franklin was brought in? To help streamline the new, expanded time length and bring the theatrical quality to the production?

Matt: He seemed to totally share our sense of humor. He has an insane work ethic. So we saw some of his shorts that he did, and we felt that he could mimic the look of traditional animation into Flash. That was really important to us, and we really hit it off with him, trying to make this movie together. We felt he really did a good job.

Jon: Drawn Together is considered a cult show, yet it’s quite well-known. Your guys’ other animated work has been what some would call niche in taste. How hard is it to balance pleasing studios, yet without compromising your own comedic tastes and style, in a market constantly looking for high Nielsen ratings and mainstream love?

Matt: It’s impossible! We haven’t been able to do it. Drawn Together was a really special project, and as much shit as we gave the network, they allowed us to do what we wanted to do. We really should have never been on television and yet we’re trying to do it again and again. A lot of people don’t want us to, as it’s too much of a headache. Comedy Central fielded a lot of complaints and took a lot of sh*t for this show, so you know, it’s really hard to do something like this again for a network, let alone a cable network. Working with MacFarlane and these characters, we had a lot of fun doing stuff you don’t see on network television.

Jon: Is there a market for R-rated animation and is the direct-to-DVD market the best outlet for it?

Matt: We’re going to find out. I hope they don’t steal it; it’s so important that they don’t steal it, then there would be no way of telling if there is life in this series. MacFarlane is doing an R-rated feature, so let’s hope that does well. But I do think there’s a market. A lot of the guys who like this are old enough for R-rated shows, as well. I think it’ll do well.

Jon: This might be a bit too early and understandably it all comes to units sold, but could we see more Drawn Together films, as on the DVD the cast wanted more, but you guys acted like this is a one and done event?

Matt: I would love to do more, and I think we were just protecting ourselves on that. You know, we pretty much begged the studio to do this and pick us up, so we’re shifting gears and playing hard to get. (laughs) Of course, we would love to do this again, as we have more stories to tell. It would be a blast and hope people will buy it. Actually, we will encourage them to buy multiple copies and find out what the return policy is at your Best Buy or favorite retailer, then buy like ten copies and keep the receipts. Once we state we’re doing a sequel, you can return them. But we need to make them think we sold a lot. If you do steal it, at least go buy one, and hold onto the receipt to return it later. It’s all I can ask.

Jon: Thanks again for chatting with us at Killer Film.

Matt: No problem, man, thanks for all of you support, tweets, and the site. I’ll make sure to click and visit your advertisers.

Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! is out April 20th on DVD. Best Buy has the Blu-ray, as a retailer exclusive. Feel free to leave comments about the film below!