Andy Richter, 'King Julien' get animated for Netflix
Usually folks have to wait till 11 at night to hear Andy Richter's voice. Next month, like his kids' friends, they'll be able to hear him regularly, on demand.
Conan O'Brien's late-night sidekick reprises his role in the animated Madagascar as the high-strung — and high-pitched — lemur Mort in All Hail King Julien, a new series from DreamWorks Animation debuting next month on Netflix. . The first five 22-minute episodes premiere on Dec. 19, with more coming in 2015.
The adventure-comedy The Adventures of Puss in Boots — starring the swashbuckling cat voiced by Antonio Banderas in the Shrek films — comes to Netflix Jan. 16, joining the already available Turbo FAST. DreamWorks plans to debut nine more animated series on Netflix by the end of 2016.
Richter's been a TV staple, but King Julien marks his latest foray into on-demand programming — he also appeared on the fourth season of Arrested Development that aired on Netflix.
"There's so much convenience to this kind of television watching," he says. "I can only see it getting bigger and growing, and I wouldn't be surprised if by the time my kids are adults almost all television was on demand."
All Hail King Julien marks the latest spinoff from the popular Madagascar franchise, which began with the 2005 movie. The fan-favorite penguin squad had their own Nickelodeon cartoon (which featured occasional appearances from Julien, Mort and their furry posse) and star in a big-screen adventure of their own next month with Penguins of Madagascar.
The King Julien series acts as a prequel to the original Madagascar revolving around how a crazy, dancing, party-animal guy came to power in a colony of lemurs.
"His delusion and madness couldn't get in that much trouble in the zoo, but on this one he's going to be endangering lots of lives — which kids love!" Richter jokes. "There's a lot of funny stuff to having a completely irresponsible leader who's really in charge of a lot of subjects."
When the series begins, Julien (voiced by Danny Jacobs) is a prince, but his uncle (Henry Winkler), the king, abdicates the throne, so his lunatic party-hearty nephew becomes ruler of the lemur kingdom. High jinks, jungle shindigs and kid-friendly raves ensue.
Julien's adviser Maurice (Kevin Michael Richardson) returns, but the animals get a new pal in Clover (India de Beaufort), the king's special-ops expert.
It's King Julien's show, but even his pint-sized confidant Mort gets a little power mad in a couple of episodes, Richter admits. "He's probably not as feet-obsessed as the Nickelodeon show — he still likes feet but they've backed off on that.
"He's pretty much the same guy. He's not broken, so there's no fixing him."
Richter has played Mort enough over the past decade that he doesn't feel like he ever left him behind.
"They keep finding new ways to put Mort into things," he says. "I'm pretty happy about that. It's a rewarding thing to know that his character has some legs and that people keep wanting to see him."
He admits, though, that because of how high he has to screech to get the full-on Mort effect, morning warm-ups and a steady dose of hot water have become essential.
"As you get older, your voice gets more gravelly," Richter says.
Still, the extra work is worth it, he adds. "I don't normally perform on command but a lot of my daughter's friends demand the Mort voice. It's a fun thing to do to make kids happy, and I'm lucky to continue doing it."
