Jonah Hill, co-creator of Fox’s upcoming animated comedy Allen Gregory, grew up wanting to be a writer on The Simpsons. So to have his series now air out of the iconic program is quite surreal.
“I can’t express what a Make-A-Wish kind of desire this is,” Hill told the audience at a screening of Allen Gregory at the New York Television Festival Tuesday night. “This whole thing has been a really insane dream.”
The series centers on its eponymous character, which Hill (who voices him) calls “the world’s most pretentious seven-year-old.” The pilot follows Gregory as he enrolls in public school for the first time, much to his disdain and that of his recently adopted older sister, after the family’s fortune takes a hit and his father’s gay life partner, who has been homeschooling Gregory, is forced to find a job.
It’s quite a cast of characters, and Hill clearly enjoys voicing a kid who brings sushi and Pinot Grigio for lunch and fancies himself the most popular kid in school on the first day.
“Getting to play someone who thinks he’s the sh*t is always funny,” Hill said, adding, “There is not one well-adjusted good person on this program.”
Allen Gregory premieres Oct. 30 as part of Fox’s “Animation Domination” lineup that includes The Cleveland Show, The Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad. But viewers of the series will notice its animation look is different than those in that block, which was done on purpose.
“We wanted it to be real and feel more human than the other animated shows, like a single camera comedy,” said co-creator/executive producer Jarrad Paul, who describes it as a “New Yorker magazine look.”
