Co-showrunner Dan Hernandez tells Rafael Motamayor that “Koala Man” is set in Australia, but a surrealist version of the country/continent as it’s being shown through Australian creator/animator Michael Cusack’s eyes. “What we learned in the writers’ room is that there was nothing that our Australian writers could say to us that we wouldn’t sort of halfway believe,” said Hernandez. “Like, ‘Oh, we rode to school every day on a kangaroo, and that’s just how we got to school.’ You kind of don’t believe them, but for a second you go, ‘Is that true? Could that be true?'” Hernandez says that Australian culture has a lot of similarities to American culture, but it’s different enough that it “seemed odd.”
Fortunately, this was perfect for “Koala Man” and how stories were presented. “It allowed us to tell stories that, in adult animation, hadn’t been told a million times before,” says Hernandez. Here’s what else he had to say:
“Because there are all these amazing shows like ‘The Simpsons,’ like ‘Family Guy,’ ‘South Park,’ all of these classic legacy shows that we all grew up watching and appreciating, but sometimes when you’re in a writers’ room, it really is that thing of “‘Simpsons’ did it, ‘Simpsons’ did it.” And with this show, because we were coming from an American point of view to learn about all this Australian stuff, it allowed us to tell stories that we hadn’t seen before.”
Short of flying across the globe, there’s also no real way for any of us Americans to fact-check what we’re presented, and if the “Oh, Naur” debate on TikTok is any indicator, Australians also love to commit to the bit, and convince us idiots of just about anything.
“Koala Man” arrives on Hulu on January 9, 2023.