October 10th, 2019 
Jackson Murphy 
Film database powerhouse IMDb is getting into original, scripted programming. Their first series is the short-form, animated You’re Not a Monster. The first four episodes are now streaming, and the entire season will be available on October 16. Four-time Emmy winning “Colbert Report” writer Frank Lesser is the creator and director, bringing fellow Emmy winners Kelsey Grammer and Eric Stonestreet together in the voice booth for this unique comedy.
Jackson Murphy: How did your relationship with IMDb begin?
Frank Lesser: I had this idea for an animated show about monsters. It’s about a therapist whose patients really are the horrifying monsters they think they are – because they really are horrifying monsters. We got Kelsey Grammer attached – he’s producing it. He’s voicing the human therapist’s great great grandfather, Dr. John Seward. He’s a vampire. He’s a retired therapist who forced his great great grandson to take over (he basically threatened him).
Frank Lesser: Eric Stonestreet is the great great grandson. We have a great voice cast. We put together a little teaser, and we were sort of sending it around. And IMDb was very excited and very interested. They wanted to get into animation. As I’ve learned, it helps if you can get really cool actors and talent involved, but you still need to have a proof of concept. So I’m so thrilled that IMDb was into letting us actually make this and getting it in front of audiences. And if nothing else, it also helps me update my own IMDb page. I’m thrilled that I have a new credit to add to that.
JM: A groundbreaking new credit. I was doing the press junket for The Secret Life of Pets 2 in NYC in May. I sat down with Eric Stonestreet and we were talking about a few things, and all of a sudden he said, “You know I’m doing a new show with Kelsey Grammer for IMDb. You’ve heard about this, right?” And I said, “No. I know nothing about it.” And he started telling me about the show before the news of it was really out there, which was nice of him to do.
FL: Oh, that’s amazing. He’s been very supportive, and he’s just an utter delight. He and Kelsey – their voices together work so well. It was a real delight. And we actually recorded the two of them together, which was definitely unusual and definitely added to my stress of trying to do the whole thing. I was like, “I got two multiple Emmy award winning performers here doing an actual scene. Okay – that sounds great. It was fairly easy because they’re amazing performers.” All the actors have been into it and think it’s a funny idea – and were very generous with their times and availabilities.
JM: And one of the other attractive features about “You’re Not a Monster” is that the episodes are four and a half minutes long. How did you determine that length?
FL: That was partially in talks with IMDb about what they were looking for. I think it’s a little bit of the idea of putting the samples out there… focusing a little more on the patient/doctor scenes… and figuring out what’s gonna work. The idea was sort of experimenting a little bit with what stories you can tell in a shorter time period. We were looking for anywhere from 3 to 7 minutes. 4 to 5 minutes was basically where we landed. We have a half-hour version that delves into more of the main characters’ relationships and storylines. There are huge bits of backstory. And one thing… I think horror fans will appreciate is that Grammer’s character is Dr. John Seward, who’s actually the psychiatrist in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”.
There’s a lot of stuff I would love to explore in future episodes. And the great thing is – because it’s IMDb, we’re tying it all to classic movie monsters. There are pretty much endless possibilities for what other monsters and creatures we can work with. Some of it is figuring out other comics and actors to voice [certain] monsters. What I love about animation is that you have endless possibilities.
JM: Are there any other specific movie references you can share?
FL: There are a couple that are fairly obscure. I love this Medusa character Maddie, who’s voiced by Amy Sedaris. And IMDb was like, “Can you make sure there are some ‘Clash of the Titans’ references in there?” So at one point Max the therapist (Stonestreet) helps her with a romantic issue, and she thanks him and tells him he helped her release the kraken in here (and she points to her heart).
JM: And what has the animation production timeline been like?
FL: We did a little bit of a proof of concept about a year and a half to two years ago. Lily Streiff, the animation director and the character designer, had read a slightly different version of the script. She had drawn some initial characters. She pretty much nailed an amazing look right off the bat. I sent her some notes on some of the characters and we fine-tuned things. Kelsey had some input on what his character looked like. We did a rough, initial six-minute teaser trailer.
Lily was in charge of a bunch of freelancers who were doing the actual animation stuff. She and a couple other storyboard artists worked on the storyboards primarily and were sending them back and forth. It was an interesting introduction to the fine details of animation and how animation actually works.
I don’t have a ton of first-hand animation experience. I actually used to draw and paint in college and high school a bit. And in middle school I wanted to be an animator. I’ve always been fascinated and enjoyed the process, and it was a lot of fun to actually have an idea, work with a really talented character designer like Lily Streiff to make it a fictional reality – to actually create something. I think that all of cinema is sort of magical, but animation in particular is kind of the most magical because it’s literally a drawing that just comes to life.
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