-Our next guests are three very talented comedians whose show,
"Los Espookys," is back for a second season.
You can see new episodes Fridays at 11:00 p.m.
on HBO and HBO Max.
Let's take a look.
♪♪
Please welcome back to the show our very own Fred Armisen,
along with Ana Fabrega and Julio Torres.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪
Welcome back.
I'm so happy to have all three of you here.
This is one of the more unique shows on TV.
I would like to ask each of you how you would describe
"Los Espookys" if someone hadn't seen it yet.
-If it starts with me -- let's see -- I would say --
-It does. -Yeah.
-A group of friends, four friends,
have a business where they get hired
to fool people and scare people.
-Okay.
-I would say it's about a group of friends
who have a business where they help trick people.
-Pretty similar so far. -Uh-huh.
-It's a half-hour comedy...
on HBO and/or HBO Max.
-This is good.
See, this is helpful, 'cause his, like --
He's got details for me.
-Uh, first season, 2019.
How much per episode?
How much of it -- I was thinking about the budget.
-Oh.
-And it is -- It's a -- It's sort of like a --
like a cartoon for adults.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-I think it has the absurdity of a cartoon.
You mentioned Season 1 was 2019, and this is --
I don't think most shows have a gap like this.
I find it incredibly comforting
to come back into the second season.
Is it different writing a second season?
Because, again, it's so --
You did so much world building in the first season.
Was it nice to just sort of write the characters now?
-Yeah. I mean, and, also, a big part of the break
was just we couldn't find the scripts.
Like, after we wrote the second season --
-Yeah, we lost the scripts.
-Yeah, it was like, "I thought you had the scripts."
"I thought you had the scripts." -Like, "I don't have them."
-And then, three years later,
"Oh, okay, we found the scripts."
-Gotcha. So there was just the one
hard copy of the scripts.
-Yeah. Yeah.
-It wasn't like a thing you had e-mailed to each other.
-No, because we're, like --
You know, HBO and confidentiality, it's so scary.
-Oh, yeah, a huge deal. Right. -So it's like --
-It's like Marvel movies, the "Los Espookys" scripts.
-Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.
If anyone got a hand -- What? -It kind of is Marvel movies.
Really, right? -Yeah, yeah, in a way.
-So this happens in the Marvel Universe, "Los Espookys"?
-I think so. -Oh, sure. Yeah.
-In, like, a sub-segment of it. -Yeah.
-Do the people who control the Marvel properties
have any idea that you've put your show
in the Marvel Universe?
-Well, they don't decide what goes into
the Marvel universe.
-That's true. Right. -Yeah.
-They can build it, but they don't decide who comes and goes.
-I'm truly waiting for, like, the Pillsbury Doughboy
to join the Avengers.
-Yeah.
-You actually did have an issue with Betty Boop,
trying to put Betty Boop into the show.
Not as easy as you thought.
Not as cheap as you thought it might be.
-No. -So -- You go.
-We're big fans of Betty Boop.
-Of course. It's your generation.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-And we knew we wanted to get Betty involved in Season 2.
-Right.
-And so we wrote this little thing thinking
we'll be able to have it animated and show Betty Boop.
Turns out, way out of our budget.
-Really? -Yeah.
-Even today, when it feels like no one is trying to use
Betty Boop.
-Oh, no.
And see, like, we like Betty Boop --
or at least I know that I do --
because she's inexplicably a Latin icon.
-Yeah. If you go South,
like, truly, you'll see her everywhere.
-Oh, interesting. -Yeah.
And we're talking -- Just to clarify,
we're talking about the 1930s or '40s black-and-white, like,
sexy "ooh-ooh," like, cartoon.
-And, so, in modern South America, she's a big deal.
-Oh, yeah.
You see a Betty Boop sticker on a car,
you know the racial profile of the person who --
-So, you reached out, and the Boop estate was like,
"You can't even begin."
-The Boop estate was like, "It's a --"
-Nonstarter. -Yeah.
-For how much money? No. -Yeah.
-And then, you know, HBO could have been like,
"Well, do you want Nicole Kidman?
We can afford that." You know?
Like, "We need Betty."
-So, the show, again, because it's very surreal,
it's very absurd, sometimes, you, as writers,
will write something that maybe you
don't quite appreciate how
technically difficult it will be.
Sometimes, like, was there an issue with
a butterfly and thinking it would be easier
to use a butterfly than it seemed?
-Yeah. There's a moment where we wanted to have
a live butterfly land on my nose.
-Uh-huh.
-And we talked to the animal person,
who was like, "You can't train a butterfly."
And we're like, "But surely there's a way
someone can teach a butterfly to land on my nose.
Or what if we shoot it backwards?
We put honey on my nose.
We start with the butterfly on my nose.
The butterfly flies off. We reverse it."
And they were like, "You can't train a butterfly."
-By the way, problem solver right there?
Like, would have never thought of that.
But, like, because my pet peeve --
And I think we talked about this.
My pet peeve --
One of my biggest pet peeves is CGI butterflies.
-Yeah. You can always tell. -And, like, they're everywhere.
-And they look bad.
-They are everywhere. -It's an infestation.
It's a digital infestation. -It is.
It's like, "Oh, it's now springtime,
and here comes the CGI butterfly."
-Yeah. And we didn't want to be one of those shows doing that.
But then we had no choice.
-Was the honey to lure the butterfly
or to stick the butterfly?
-Both. -Okay. It's both.
-But then was the idea that it would have to eat away
at the part that was sticking its legs?
-I did not think this through. -Okay.
-It was, like, in theory, you would think
a butterfly eats honey, maybe?
-Yeah. Right.
-Are all bugs?
I think all bugs are supposed to eat honey, right?
-Yeah, they all, like -- -Based on --
-But the bees manufacture it. -I know. That's what I'm saying.
Like, why do we all think that? Because of bees.
-The bees don't eat it. -The bees don't eat it?
-They make it for the other insects.
-Yeah.
-Oh. So they're like a vegan that owns a butcher shop.
-Yeah. Yeah.
-It's like, "I won't touch it, but I'll sell it."
-Yeah. -Okay.
-Yeah.
-You -- There -- You mentioned an animal wrangler
being in charge of the butterflies and all the animals.
-Too many animals on our show.
-We had a surprising amount of animals.
-Gotcha. And how do you feel in general about using them?
-You know, I -- There's a horse this season.
-A horse, yeah.
-That I rode for, I'm going to say,
two seconds before the stunt double takes over.
-Yeah.
-It was truly just like me getting on the horse, cut.
-Yeah.
-Fully, like, a woman in a wig riding a horse.
-Yeah. -But I don't know.
I felt kind of, like, weird that no one asked the horse
if the horse wanted to be on the show.
-Yeah.
-Yeah, because you could tell --
You know, the horse comes with their wrangler.
And the wrangler wanted the horse to be there,
but the horse was like --
-The wrangler was like, "The horse loves it.
The horse loves it."
-We don't know if the horse -- -How can you tell?
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-That it's happy.
-I guess if it comes back for Season 3, you know it liked it.
-Do you ever -- Are there any horses on your crew?
-We don't have any horses on the crew, no.
We did, but then there was an issue.
-COVID. -Yeah, COVID.
-COVID. Yeah.
-With a horse, the masks are impossible,
because just the elastic has to go so --
-Yeah. -Yeah, yeah.
-Well, whatever -- I will say, the result, it paid off.
You obviously all know what you're doing with the show.
It is so wonderful and specific. And I'm so happy it's back.
And thank you guys for being here.
-Thank you. Thank you.
-Fred Armisen, Ana Fabrega, Julio Torres.
"Los Espookys," Friday nights at 11:00 on HBO and HBO Max.
We'll be right back with music from Ashley McBryde.