More than nine millennia ago, the Rad Wars devastated Earth. “They weren’t rad, they were bad!” shrieks a floating, sportscasting, mohawked orb in the opening moments of Ballmastrz 9009, the new show from Superjail! creator Christy Karacas.
Instead of war, movies, TV, football, or politics, the only activity anyone obsesses over is the blood sport invented by earth’s immortal Supreme Leader to enforce peace. The Game entertains the masses and gives rowdy war hawks something to do besides starting political conflict. There are only two rules: Use the ball to score, and use the ball to kill.
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Ballmastrz feels like Devilman Crybaby tossed The Bad News Bears, Looney Tunes, a jar of Adult Swim promos, and Rollerball into a blender and then jumped in after them. For the uninitiated, Karacas is known animating spectacular deaths, whether in his ten-deaths-a-minute show Superjail!, short films like Bar Fight , or music videos like Royal Blood’s “Out of the Black.” Ballmastrz “isn’t as violent, but is just as intense” as his previous work, said Karacas. “What I like about Superjail! and violent scenes in general is that it’s creative and funny, not that it’s grossing me out. I like violence, that’s true, but this is like Looney Tunes violence.”
Karacas has been working on the show for four years, but lucked out in the casting phase when he scored Orange Is the New Black star Natasha Lyonne to play his leading lady, disgraced superstar athlete Gaz Digzy. “She’s like the Michael Jordan of the sport. But then she kind of went the Kenny Powers route,” Karacas told me over a beer. In the first episode she tumbles from celebrity rehab into her last chance at redemption: helping the worst team in the league win just one round of The Game.
The worst team in the league is an archetypal group of misfits, part Bad News Bears and part One Piece, called the Leptons. They’re from the poorest region on the planet and are the butt of the most violent visual gags in the first few episodes. The main character is peppy orphan Ace Ambling, who talks like Ash Ketchum and idolizes Gaz—until she abandons the Leptons to go on a bender. They must unlock the secret power of the Ballmastrz if they want a shot at victory.
Karacas reached out to Lyonne while she was shooting a scene with Superjail! vet David Wain for his satirical National Lampoon biopic A Futile and Stupid Gesture . “She asked [Wain] if he knew anything about this Adult Swim thing. And he was like, ‘You should do it, they’re cool!’ And she said OK!” said Karacas. “When Natasha and I were reading the lines, she said, ‘I love this character.’ She liked that she’s basically like a dude. Gaz is just a badass person who happens to be a chick.”
Despite Lyonne’s star power, Karacas knows Ballmastrz isn’t for everybody. “I didn’t know how it was going to turn out when I started. There was a process of figuring it out,” he said. Lately he’s been getting into anime like Kill la Kill and Ping Pong, and is open about the influence it had on the show (though he isn’t sure if Michael B. Jordan’s endorsement has made the medium cool yet). Its DNA is instantly recognizable in everything from the super tight cuts, over-the-top themed battles, and characters’ big crying eyes. It’s a departure from Superjail! and he doesn’t know if fans of the show or the Japanese animation style will enjoy his fusion.
While Karacas is cautious about the future, he’s very excited. He already knows the direction he wants to take the show. “If we get another season,” he said, “I want to make it weirder.”
Ballmastrz 9009 premieres Sunday, April 8 at midnight (EST/PST) on Adult Swim.
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