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Genndy Tartakovsky has spent decades shaping the animation landscape with everything from Dexter’s Laboratory to Samurai Jack, but when he sat down with Kyle Meredith, the talk was all about his first leap into unapologetically adult animation. His new Netflix film Fixed follows a good-natured dog named Bull on the last wild night before his scheduled neutering, a premise Tartakovsky says came to him in a single lightning-strike moment. Seventeen years, multiple pitches, and one truly committed cast later, the result is a raunchy-but-heartfelt comedy that pushes cartoons beyond TV-safe snark. Listen above, watch below, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts.
As Tartakovsky explains, the road to Fixed began with a character-driven buddy movie idea loosely inspired by his childhood friends, which studio execs insisted needed a hook. “They said maybe even an adult concept,” he recalls. “And instantly I said, ‘What if they’re dogs, and one finds out he’s getting neutered in the morning?’ Everyone laughed, and that was it.”
The humor comes from the familiarity of dog behavior—something he mines heavily. “We all give our dogs voices. We imagine what they’re thinking when they’re barking or sniffing a tree. Translating that into an animated film gave us endless comedy.” While that comedy leans gleefully graphic, Tartakovsky had his own lines in the sand. “We get balls, we get buttholes, but no lipstick,” he laughs. “That just felt icky.” Idris Elba, voicing Rocco, got the lion’s share of euphemism-filled dialogue, which the actor embraced wholeheartedly despite being in the conversation for James Bond at the time. “He loved it,” Tartakovsky says. “One speech had five different ways to say balls, and he was cracking up.”
After a 17-year fight to get the movie made, Tartakovsky’s hope is that Fixed helps pry open the door for more full-length, adult-oriented animation in the US. Listen to Genndy Tartakovsky talk about Fixed and more in the new episode above or by watching the video below. Keep up on all the latest episodes by following Kyle Meredith With… on your favorite podcast platform; plus, check out all the series on the Consequence Podcast Network.
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