Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1475662
D E PA R T M E N T 37 KEYFRAME But a game is after all a game, with a limited narrative and no clear story plots. The creative team's first challenge was to develop a solid story arc and infuse personalities into the various characters. "We [had] to reverse engineer personalities into these characters and find meaning. How do we make their personalities funny? Where do we create friction?" says Executive Producer and Showrunner Dave Wasson, who worked together with Co-Executive Producer and Writer Cosmo Segurson. He and Segurson mined the storybook sequence at the beginning of the game for ideas and found inspiration in an image of Cuphead sitting at a craps table having the time of his life, while Mugman hangs on the edge of the table, a look of palpable fear on his face. "We took those bread crumbs and it was like, okay, so we know Cuphead's impulsive and reckless and doesn't think about consequences. What pairs well with that? Somebody who's more grounded, who is maybe a little more cautious," says Wasson. This dynamic relationship between Cuphead and Mugman—combined with the grouchy Elder Kettle, Ms. Chalice, the Devil, and more—created the perfect comedy engine for the story. Given the target family audience, Wasson and Segurson wondered if featuring the Devil would be too controversial, but they pushed for the character's inclusion. "In order to have strong heroes, you've got to have a great villain. And what better villain than the Devil himself?" asks Wasson. The story team devised a premise where Cuphead is a fly in the Devil's ointment, and for the first time ever, the Devil is frustrated. "We all felt like frustrated characters can be really fun to play with as a character trait. We pushed it even further—he's really vain and very self-aware. I think he's definitely the most complicated character in the series," says Segurson. BYGON E E R A S & MODE R N STORY TE LLI NG "Every morning we would have a cartoon kickoff where we'd watch at least three classic cartoons, as well as maybe some live-action shorts from the period," says Segurson. "I think everyone was ready to just fully dive into this kind of 1930s-style humor and animation and music." Inspiration was drawn from other eras and sources including a myriad of historic references from Popeye to the Silly Symphony series, the vocal rhythms of Frank Capra films to the comedic timing of The Three Stooges. Where they did veer from some of the more vintage animation influences was in the story, opting for a character-driven comedy. "Audiences [then] weren't as sophisticated as audiences are now, and so just to see a character moving in a silly cycle was enough to entertain someone. It was like seeing a magic trick. [Now] almost a hundred years later, people have Images courtesy of Netflix SPRING 2022 37