Robert Carlock and Sam Means (of 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) team-up once again, this time as co-creators of the new adult animated comedy series Mulligan. It premieres this Friday May 12th on Netflix. They, and supervising director Colin Heck (The Simpsons Movie), join me for this Animation Scoop Q&A to share what makes the show unique, relevant and quite funny. (This interview was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: Washington DC survives a global disaster — an alien attack. What fascinated you the most about wanting to explore the idea of Earth starting over?

Robert Carlock: Well, some very small things, really. And as a storyteller, not having cell phones. Taking away technology, while it created some storytelling obstacles and hurdles, it was fun. Ultimately this show, as big as the premise is, is about human beings trying to figure out how to get along with each other. And can they do it better than they’ve done it in the past? We don’t have a great track record of not turning on each other. And getting people to look up from their screens and actually talk to each other and try to figure things out. The smallness of that is where the show really lives — in these human dynamics. That’s part of what was exciting. Of course, having the Domino’s pizza tracker fall out of orbit and crush a statue is also fun.

JM: Yeah. You have a lot of fun with pop culture in this. Sam, what could you do? What could you not do? There’s a lot that goes on when it comes to what you make fun of on this show.

Sam Means: Yeah. And [Robert and I] had never done animation before, so there was a lot about the possibilities of having alien spacecraft appear and obliterate the whole Earth that we couldn’t do in live-action. And it’s also wish fulfillment. What if we could start over and do things right this time? That might be nice if we could get another crack at it.

JM: Yes, and through these two main characters. Matty Mulligan is our new President. Lucy,

Miss America, is being courted and may become the First Lady. How did you try to discover and present their dynamic through this crisis?

SM: Well it’s so interesting that in these big action movies there’s always this couple that’s thrown together in the heat of the action. Vivica A. Fox and Will Smith are both trying to save the world [in “Independence Day”]. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in “Speed”. But we wanted to look at, “What if they actually had to have an adult relationship after that, in this very heightened post-apocalyptic real world? How would they get to know each other?”

RC: They’ve just met each other.

SM: They’re the chosen couple of the new world, but they don’t know anything about each other. On some level, it’s a rom-com about two people getting to know each other.

JM: And it’s very charming that way. And Colin, you have to animate Washington DC — these iconic landmarks and items. Was that terrifying? How did you feel about that going into this?

Colin Heck: It was definitely a challenge, and one we handled with grace and aplomb. It was difficult. We had to blow up a real location that Sam had been to (laughs) — and stage comedy within it. It was finding the balance of how destroyed we want the world we’re living in to look, as opposed to how funny we want this to be. And sometimes the answer was: push the most destruction and this benign moment will be funnier. Drawing those backgrounds is difficult. It’s a lot of destruction. Turns out drawing destruction on walls is harder than drawing blank walls. But I think it was worth it in the end. I think we managed to present a vision of the world that was both destroyed and welcoming, which feels like a trick.

JM: It works! And Robert, I also like that it’s not completely linear storytelling. There are some flashbacks in these first couple elements. How important was that to you — to unravel these surprise moments?

RC: It’s a mulligan. It’s a do-over. And it’s for the whole world. It’s for Earth and nature… but also for the individuals. Knowing what people were either running from or trying to correct or trying to recapture… Each of the characters has a vision of what they want the world to be, but also who they want to be in it. The Vice President character Dana Carvey voices kind of wants to go back in time and be the Dick Cheney to Matty’s George Bush and be the one who’s actually in control — and finds himself foiled in surprising ways at that. To start, Lucy has this beauty pageant view of the world, on stages saying she wants to make the world a better place. Well now the rubber meets the road. Where they were before this happened is very important, both with storytelling and in giving you jokes. Like the show “Lost”, what brought them to where they are is as important as the day to day of surviving.

JM: And Robert, you were a writer and producer on “Friends” and “30 Rock” and co-created “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, these legendary live-action comedies. How did you approach animation? What surprised you about the animation comedy world?

RC: I’ve always been such a fan of animation, whether it’s “The Simpsons” or “Rick and Morty” or “Looney Tunes”. When we were first thinking about this, and it’s something Tina [Fey] and I had been talking about with Sam and other writers we work with, knowing how much we like to tell jokes and how we like to do little cutaways and flashbacks — thinking that it would be easier in animation. And in some ways it is. The thing that surprised me is: Early on someone told us, “You can draw anything. You HAVE to draw everything.” (laughs) What was often surprising was the stuff you take for granted in live-action, like what a chair looks like, or what confusion combined with sadness looks like on an actor’s face. You could have very, very talented people executing this stuff and something gets rendered wrong, or some subtlety is missing in a face. Humans get human emotion. You can’t fake it.

JM: Colin, you worked as a storyboard artist on “The Simpsons Movie”. There was a big disaster event in that movie with THE DOME. Do you remember figuring out the dome and putting some sequences in that iconic movie together?

CH: I remember having to figure out how Homer was going to drive up the dome on a motorcycle and then ride down on the falling pieces of glass in a way that defied the concept of terminal velocity. It was fun, and you’re right, there are a lot of parallels between the heightened emotions of the Springfieldians trapped under a dome in “The Simpsons Movie” and a lot of the crowd scenes in this show. They ultimately survive and a lot of people don’t here. (laughs) A lot of the lessons that I learned on dealing with a town-ending disaster on “The Simpsons Movie” did come into play here.

JM: Nice!

RC: They [probably] had a little more money to work with on “The Simpsons Movie”. (laughs)

JM: One of the characters says they want the “Fast and the Furious” franchise to come back. My last question for all three of you is: If you had the choice, which film franchise would you want to come back? Could be live-action or animated. If the world was ending and needed to restart, what’s the one you would want to get going?

CH: That’s not currently going? I feel like they’re already doing all of them.

SM: If this was 1997, I’d have so many answers. (laughs)

RC: Yeah, I’d say “Indiana Jones” to fix that last one, but they’re already doing another one.

CH: “Back to the Future”? How about that? They haven’t done more of those.

RC & SM: Yeah!