From On Patrol #35: Hot Helena Bonham Carter
November 12th, 2012

At this point we’d lost both Joe Fey and David Lewis, who were our two main characters – but when you’re working on a project for two years, you have to expect changes like this to occur. In that way, Major Grotto was very much shaped by its surroundings, which is the way the show always was. So I went with it: I brought on Mackenzie Rech to voice Major Grotto (claiming that the Major had gone through vocal changes due to stress after Jabadiah’s death), and Andrew Kraemer as Jobobiah, who was Jabadiah’s exiled brother. Major Grotto was verging on being so unwieldy as I added stuff: deep Pink Floyd/Indie Rock knowledge, pretty elusive inside jokes, tons of pop culture references, and then this political structure of Atlantis – with the addition of Ryan Kottman and Abby Schubach. I think the original cast members – Morgan Ann and Nico – were probably worried about the saga’s changing shape, but as soon as we heard Kottman and Kraemer go at it we knew we had something magical. Honestly, though, my favorite part is when someone makes a noise at my cue: “Suddenly there is a loud crash,” which sounds like paper crumpling – and my response is a totally adlibbed throwaway: “…Alright.” I think it was at that moment that I knew the thing had gotten away from me, and that it was its own beast.