Thanks everyone for checking out the first episode. It seems like you liked it! More fun to come. You’ll get to meet a lot of new kooky characters in upcoming shows, along with Krog’s old nemesis. But more on him later…

“THE INTERVIEW” was always meant to be the first episode – it seemed like a great way to introduce Krogzilla and his plight. The HR Director became a nice way to create a little exposition and set up the premise of the series. The scene with the receptionist was probably the first scene I ever had in my mind. Any time you have a monster or a robot or something fantastical doing very mundane activities, it’s funny. We learned this while making “Hoodwinked.” The more ordinary the animals’ conversations were, the funnier it was (such as the two caterpillars discussing “dating other people.”). So the rules of this universe are that NO ONE really reacts to Krogzilla as something unusual. He’s just some dude that’s a little weird. The indifference the receptionist shows him is something I’ve experienced in a LOT of customer service situations. Haven’t you?

KAREN WHIPPLE plays the receptionist and she is really great. Along with voice work, Karen sings on many movie soundtracks you may have heard, such as “Star Trek,” “Ice Age” and “Real Steel.” Anytime you hear operatic choral voices mixed into the thunderous orchestra, it’s probably her! As with many dialogue scenes in this show, we recorded both of us at the same time in the booth to get that casual, sloppy, overlapping conversation. I knew the animation was going to be very graphically simple, so I wanted the performances to be very loose and real. Karen will do another voice in a few episodes that is light years away from this one. Wait ‘til you hear it!

SHON LITTLE plays the HR director. Shon is a character actor who has been on shows like “That’s So Raven,” “Everybody Hates Chris” and “Two and a Half Men.” Beyond acting, Shon also writes, directs and stars in his own web series, “BETTY AND DD.” Check it out if you like awkward pauses from students in a small town acting school! I love Shon’s delivery of these lines… it’s almost like music when you hear his highs and lows. And once again, it’s really not strange to this guy that a green monster is applying for job placement. It’s more irritating that he has no skills. I used to have this extra bit in the script where the HR guy asks, “Can you type?” And Krog has to admit that he usually breaks the keys off with his claws.

Then we meet JEFF. I must give credit to my wife for the invention of this loud-mouthed guy – and if you know my wife, then it’s really bizarre that this came from her! But she knew that the audience for this show is the same audience that likes “South Park,” “Robot Chicken” and “Family Guy.” After reading the first draft of the script, she said to me, “This isn’t weird enough yet. You need something like a little guy living on his neck.”

“A what????? Living on his neck?? Who ARE you? I don’t even know you anymore!…” But then I started laughing. Of course – this laid back, befuddled guy needs the opposite kind of character rubbing against him; someone EXPLOSIVE and random. Once I realized a sea monster would naturally have a barnacle living on him, Jeff became the perfect metaphor — He’s that roommate who sleeps on your Futon and contributes NOTHING to your life, but has a big opinion about everything.

And let me say this to all the Jeff’s I personally know out there (and there are several), this is in NO WAY a version of you! All the Jeff’s in my life are good, dependable guys. It was just the funniest name I could give to a creepy little creature. It’s like naming a pirate “Steve” or a dragon “Pam.” And once again, in “Hoodwinked” one of our favorite jokes was “Greg Stiltskin.”

JOSH GREENE performs the voice of Jeff, because I believe a little of Jeff lurks somewhere within him. Josh says he channeled the love child of Al Pacino and Gilbert Godfried. Jeff will be popping up when you least expect it throughout the series, and saying the most inappropriate stuff. People are already repeating one of his memorable lines from this episode: “That’s racist!! Is that racist?”

No Jeff. Go back to sleep.

I can’t promise that Krogzilla will set fire to something in every show, but I can tell you that there are more surprises and really awkward situations to come. If you like the show, the highest compliment you can give it is to tell someone else about it. And for that, I thank you in advance. Of course, if you didn’t like it, I’d love for you to bury that opinion deep, deep inside yourself and journal about it later.

See you next week for episode two! A little teaser: it’s titled “Big Dogs.”

Hey gang… just a week away from letting Krogzilla loose on the web in his new series, “KROGZILLA GETS A JOB.” Very exciting. If you haven’t seen the sneak peak trailer yet, here it is.

I thought I’d give some SHOUT OUTS to the guys who have gone above and beyond to bring this little project to life. As you will read, they are all WAY over-qualified for their jobs on this and I am so happy to have their expertise.

RYAN HOSTETLER is my Animation Producer and has pretty much managed every frame of the animation process from the moment I handed over the storyboards. The series is created with Flash animation, a more economic solution to creating 2D stuff that still looks hand drawn. Ryan and his team do great work — I had very little tweaking to do on the episodes (and frankly, we had no time). You’ll see that the dialogue we recorded is really casual and conversational, and the animators made that very funny with razor-sharp lip sync and adding their own little performance flourishes. Ryan is also the last step in the post production process and is much more technically savvy than I am. Thanks, Ryan! You can check out his company Silly Monster Media, here.

The other amazing trivia is that Ryan and I both went to Anderson University, but several years apart. I got to know him as an alumni and here we are, making monsters together.

MARK KEEFER is the master of all things sound on our show, as well as an old friend in the biz. To tell you how long we’ve known each other, Mark created all the sound design on one of my first projects, “Wobots,” about ten years ago. He was also sound designer on “Hoodwinked.” Since then, Mark has worked with Skywalker Sound, Warner Brothers Animation, Disney and all the cucumbers and gourds at Veggie Tales. He’s also moved from sound editor to picture editor, recently cutting on storyreels for Jim Henson’s “Dinosaur Train,” the upcoming animated feature “Dorothy of Oz” as well as a new spinoff from Disney’s “Cars” (spoiler alert!).

On “Krogzilla Gets A Job,” Mark edited all of our recorded dialogue as well as created the sound design and final mix. Each episode takes place in a totally different environment, so Mark had a lot to create. And like Ryan, Mark delivers results that I rarely have to give notes on. This kind of attention is invaluable, because our schedule was jam packed. Thanks, Mark!

JOSH GREENE is a man of many hats. Literally. He is wearing a different hat every time I see him. I prefer the Timberlake mini-fedora by the way, Josh. But I also mean that you will hear Josh in a wide variety of roles in this series. He was the sound engineer for all recording sessions at his studio, Squareplay Entertainment. He is the voice of Krog’s best friend Marcus and his least favorite roommate Jeff. And he wrote and performed the super-catchy theme song for the show — the song that you WILL be singing to yourself for weeks, guaranteed. It’s very easy to say a bunch of very general things to Josh like, “Make is sound like a jazzy vintage TV theme from the 60’s, like Spider-Man and Speed Racer.” Then he comes back with EXACTLY that, and even more that surprised me.

Josh and I had many, many late nights of slap-happy recording sessions. Many of them I barely remember. But they were always fun and loose and brought out the playfulness in our voice cast. Thanks, Josh! Now take that hat off.

These guys are the core players that made this series happen. They are the sweet chewy nougat center. Without them, Krogzilla would just be a bunch of pencil sketches and me reading pages aloud to myself. So when you enjoy the show next week (and I hope you will), think of these guys. And imagine them with very baggy, sleep-deprived eyes.