Mike McMahan, Danielle Uhlarik and Josh Bycel Talk SOLAR OPPOSITES Halloween Special

Melody McCune

Jesse and Terry wear pumpkin masks while holding their arms up in the Solar Opposites Halloween Special

Who doesn’t love Halloween? Korvo, that’s who! The Solar Opposites Halloween special, officially titled “A Sinister Halloween Scary Opposites Solar Special,” finds Korvo (Justin Roiland) getting spooked by the spooky-ful holiday at every turn. At the same time, Terry (Thomas Middleditch) and Jesse (Mary Mack) crank their celebration up to an 11 and Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) vacations in Florida, erm, Hell. It’s brimming with pop culture references, sardonic humor and visually-pleasing Halloween aesthetics. It’s exactly what you would expect from a Solar Opposites Halloween special.

Recently, I had the privilege of chatting with co-creator/showrunner/executive producer Mike McMahan and executive producers Danielle Uhlarik and Josh Bycel for Hulu’s Huluween virtual press junket about what inspired them to create a special that Korvo can’t stomach because it’s just too spooky

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This interview is condensed for length and clarity. 

Melody McCune: What inspired the creation of this special, plot-wise?

Mike McMahan: Josh is very pagan and respects the cycle of birth and death that — no. We love Halloween episodes. We wanted to do a special that felt very Halloween-y. We were trying to figure out our Solar Opposites take on Halloween.

It was really that Korvo is the type of guy in your friend group who loves going to movies until it’s a scary movie, and then they’re like, “Uh-uh, I won’t do that.” There’s never been a Halloween episode about a person afraid of Halloween, and we made him scared of not only the big Halloween scary stuff but also fun-size Snickers and Ring Pops. Anything that has to do with Halloween is too much for him. The other side of the story is we pair him up with a scary character, the Crypt Keeper.

Meanwhile, Yumyulack thinks sci-fi is cooler than horror, so we did a story about that.

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Melody McCune: Now that Yumyulack has spent time in Hell, could you see him returning to take it over with sci-fi?

MM: Now that you’ve said it, sure.

Josh Bycel: Absolutely.

MM: That does sound like a good idea.

Korvo drives Crypt Keeper while eyeing him suspiciously in the Solar Opposites Halloween Special.
A SINISTER HALLOWEEN SCARY OPPOSITES SOLAR SPECIAL (Try saying that 10 times fast)

Melody McCune: Do you think Korvo will allow Halloween celebrations now that he’s met and killed The Great Pumpkin?

MM: That probably helped.

Danielle Uhlarik: The best part of this episode for me is that Korvo thinks things are too spooky. The more we keep that, the more I would love that to be part of his canon and character. That Halloween is always so spooky.

MM: I think Korvo might be willing to eat a slice of pumpkin pie, which, even though it’s not a Halloween thing, is still too spooky for him because the word “pumpkin” is involved.

Melody McCune: The opening credits are such a blast. Did you get a lot of input with the design?

MM: Bob Suarez directed this episode, and we told them to go nuts. They sent it to us, and Josh and I were like, “Yeah, looks like a bunch of Halloween stuff.” That was f**kin’ awesome.

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JB: That’s one of my favorite things about it. We did it for the Christmas episode, and we’ll do it for our next special. We can’t tell you what it is, but that’s the most fun — to see what they do there.

Melody McCune: Do you have any favorite lines from the special?

MM: My favorite is when Yumyulack is being pulled into Hell, and he goes, “Oh no, Hell. This is so lame!” as he’s f**kin’ getting pulled in there.

Melody McCune: That’s a good one.

JB: I love when he goes, “You think I’d be scared by this? I’ve been to space.”

MM: When he’s like, “Oh, am I in a suburban mom’s version of Hell? I keep expecting somebody to come out with a Tim Burton black and white umbrella.” His daydream is so funny. I also love all the Crypt Keeper’s things we wrote for him to make Korvo scream. There’s a lot of fun stuff in this episode.

DU: It is the actual Crypt Keeper’s voice, John Kassir, and he was amazing. We all love Tales from the Crypt.

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Melody McCune: How many tubes of chapstick do you think Terry used at the end of the special?

MM: Well, it’s tough. Because if you think about it, you never use up a whole tube, right?

Melody McCune: You never do. But that was a long line of people.

Jesse and Terry wear pumpkin masks while holding their arms up in the Solar Opposites Halloween Special
A SINISTER HALLOWEEN SCARY OPPOSITES SOLAR SPECIAL (It’s scarier than Hell)

JB: We had a mathematical equivalent. I think we had an extra scene we had to cut where Korvo goes to Costco, and he asks the people at Costco, “What is the biggest amount of chapstick you have?” We had to cut that scene.

MM: We had to go through the entire Burt’s Bees beehive.

Thank you, Mike, Danielle and Josh, for chatting with GGA!

A Sinister Halloween Scary Opposites Solar Special is now streaming on Hulu

https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/halloween-playlist-music-songs/

Melody McCune
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