The somewhat insular world of TV animation was thrust into the spotlight in quite the negative way earlier this year when Rick and Morty co-creator was fired from the Adult Swim series (and other projects) over a domestic violence complaint filed by an ex-girlfriend in 2020. While the backlash over that controversial situation has subsided, with the voice actor’s legal team still claiming he’s innocent, his former creative partner Dan Harmon earned quite a bit of good news for his other big TV show that exists far outside the portal-opening worlds of Rick and Morty.
It’s been nearly three whole years since Dan Harmon first signed a deal with Fox for the creation of another wild and wacky animated series, Krapopolis, which was initially meant to debut on the network in 2022. An actual premiere date still has yet to be revealed, but Fox just gave Krapopolis another form of fantastic news in the form of an official renewal for Season 3! So before we even get to fully sit down and enjoy this fantastical comedy for the first time, we already have the guarantee that it’ll be part of Fox’s animated lineup for years to come.
Krapopolis’ excellent update was announced at the London Screenings event, with Fox Entertainment’s President of Scripted Programming Michael Thorn at least confirming that the animated comedy will pop up on the network as part of this year’s TV schedule. In his glowing words:
The 2023-24 Season is the perfect launching pad for this highly-anticipated and very funny animated comedy, complete with multiple seasons of epic laughs for fans,” said Thorn. “The more we see from production, the more excited we are about their creativity, story arcs, flawless execution, brilliant voice cast, and ability to pump out episode after episode of astonishing events and outrageous, unexpected hilarity.
Set in an ancient Greece that’s populated by both people and mythical creatures, Krapopolis centers on a dysfunctional family of gods, monsters and humans who attempt to prove their leadership skills by running one of the world’ first cities. To say it all goes smoothly would be to lie profusely. And speaking to Thorn’s claims about the show’s brilliant voice cast, the upcoming series does sport a solid ensemble featuring the following actors:
- Richard Ayoade as Tyrannis, the benevolent and mortal King of Krapopolis
- Hannah Waddingham as Tyrannis' self-destructive goddess of a mother Deliria
- Matt Berry as the oversexed and lazy mantitaur Schlub, Tyrannis' father
- Pam Murphy as Stupendous, Tyrannis' half-sister born to Deliria and a cyclops
- Duncan Trussel as Hippocampus, Tyrannis' half-brother born to Schlub and a mermaid
- Recurring cast: Stephanie Beatrix, Tara Strong, Dove Cameron, Alanna Ubach
- Guest cast: Susan Sarandon, Jane Lynch, Dave Franco, Will Forte, Yvette Nicole Brown, Michael Urie, Amber Stevens West
At this point, it’s clearly a good thing that Harmon didn’t bring Justin Roiland in for various voice roles in Krapopolis, or that show would be in the same boat as Rick and Morty by way of having to recast its lead characters. Though it’s not entirely clear what’s kept the animated comedy from hitting the small screen before now, at least we can take comfort in knowing Fox has all the gods-fearing confidence in the world that it’ll be worth keeping on the air for at least three seasons.
At a time when animated projects have been getting canceled and/or booted from their platforms outright — largely at Rick and Morty’s streaming home of HBO Max — Dan Harmon landed a whopper of a great announcement. Now we just have to wait and see which one happens first: Krapopolis debuting on Fox or Rick and Morty solving its Prime Rick mystery.
