The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘ARCHER’ RETURNS CHARACTERS TRAPPED ON ‘DANGER ISLAND’
New episodes find the team trapped on ‘Danger Island.’
The magic of animation is the ability to suspend time. Bart Simpson, for instance, has been the same age for three decades on “The Simpsons.”
It also allows creators to mess around with time and entire situations. FXX’s “Archer” ditched the spy agency trope from the first few seasons and became coke dealers season five, then private investigators season seven. For season nine returning Wednesday, creator Adam Reed has taken the show in a completely new direction by sending the core characters back to 1939 and trapping them on an island full of danger. (Thus, the new title: “Danger Island.”)
Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) is no longer a spy. Rather, he’s a semi-functioning alcoholic seaplane pilot who lands in a lush South Pacific island of Mitimotu in 1939. Along with his trusty co-pilot Pam (Amber Nash), Sterling has to navigate quicksand, and survive cannibals, super-intelligent monkeys, poison darts and pirates. Fortunately, it’s 1939, so nukes are not in the equation. Or smoke monsters.
I spoke with Matt Thompson, a co-executive producer out of Atlanta, where the show is created about the new season and he couldn’t be more psyched.
Did you ever expect to make it to season nine?
No. Adam and I never expected to make it to season nine because it’s weird. When you make cartoons, you don’t realize if people like it or not. When shooting a live action TV show, at least you’re out in front of people and people recognize you and talk to you. We’re really anonymous, faceless people. We never have any sense people like what we do and it’s been that way for years …
“Archer” started as a loose Bond take off. That’s not the case anymore. Since these are animated characters, does it even matter?
When it came time for Adam to write another script about a spy, a bad guy in Nicaragua we have to get out of power, one day, Adam looked me deep into the eyes and said, ‘Dear God! I can’t write another spy episode!’ We sat down. What does that mean? That doesn’t mean we won’t go back to it. What it does mean in the short term is we have to tell stories we are interested in first … We had them become criminals and sell cocaine. Next time, we’re not spies. We’re private eyes! That just opened things up. We found it freeing, which goes to a larger point. We’re about to premiere our ninth season of television. I don’t watch shows in their ninth season because I know what they’re gong to say and do. I know the plots. I’ve been down that road before Neo …
It’s now “Danger Island.”
Last season, things got real dark. We got some deep dark murder stuff. It was beautiful and interesting but we really wanted to lighten things up and tell more jokes. The entire tone of this season is different. We’re on this island of danger with hyper intelligent monkeys,
giant lizards and quicksand. There are Nazis and poisonous frogs. Everything in this jungle can murder you. And we have our evil scientist Dr. Krieger [Lucky Yates] as a talking parrot named Crackers.
It’s now 1939. Do you try to capture that time period accurately?
We try to capture it in a realistic way to a large degree. The car has to match. The clothes are from that time period. The guns, too. But to some degree, it doesn’t matter.
Do fans get on our case if there’s something off or anachronistic?
Someone has told us a tie clip Archer is wearing should be on the right, not the left. That was supposed to be on the 1929 model, not the 1932. We try really hard to get it right. Our audience expects it to be right. They like learning about a particular weird car Russia made in 1962. We get letters and calls. We kind of appreciate it…
Anything else you’d like to add before we go?
We brought back a character from season three everybody loved. David Cross plays him as Noah, the anthropologist living among the cannibals trying to eat our cast. It’s amazing having David Cross back again. He and H. Jon Benjamin have this shorthand since they’ve done comedy for a long time together. I just love watching them bicker with each other!