Tuca & Bertie’s second season—on Adult Swim—has introduced a whole new slew of plant people into its world of anthropomorphic animals. If series creator Lisa Hanawalt and star Nicole Byer get their way, we’re going to be seeing quite a bit more of them.
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At virtual San Diego Comic-Con 2021, Hanawalt, Byer, and Tuca & Bertie executive producer Raphael Bob-Waksberg all sat down to discuss making the show’s second season and how plant characters, in particular, came to feature so largely in the story. The animated series recently brought its titular feathered duo to the plant person-filled town of Planteau where they both realized there were cracks in their friendship that needing some immediate dressing. But before Tuca and Bertie had a chance to have a heart to heart, the duo and the rest of the bachelorette party they were with first took in a night on the town that included countless shots and a brief visit to a strip club where a group of greased up tomatoes in leaf g-strings took to the stage.
The strippers, Bob-Waksberg said, were some of his favorite characters to write despite their only appearing briefly in “Planteau” before one of them gets a chunk bitten out of them, and Tuca and Bertie leave the club. “I pitched so many jokes about them, and Lisa went ‘No, no,’” Bob-Waksberg said. “But there was more like, what if we came back for another scene later where we follow them back to their homes, and they’re talking to their wives?”
Hanawalt explained how other characters—like the plant teenagers who live in Tuca and Bertie’s neighborhood—ended up coming back far more than other supporting characters because she likes them, even though most of them don’t really have names or fleshed out identities. This, she said, led to some production issues. “Number One is Martha, but the problem was that we kept confusing them, and so, we’d watch the animatic, and it’s like ‘No, you gave Plant Teen Two’s voice to Plant Teen One,” Hanawalt said. “‘That’s the cactus’ voice.’ Two of them don’t have names yet; maybe we’ll find out later.”
While Byer and Hanawalt couldn’t agree on what Plant Teen Two’s (one of the characters Byer voices) name should be, they were both enthusiastic about Byer voicing another plant stripper as part of a story to bring the tomatoes back should there be a season three. “Yeah, I want to be a cucumber stripper,” Byer said matter of factly. “I come in, I take over, the Tomato Strippers are mad, they’re like, ‘What, this Cucumber’s moving in?’ A long cucumber, with legs, and arms, and titties, and I’m wearing like a little bikini, and then I got a little ponytail coming out at the top.”
Tuca & Bertie’s second season is now airing on Sundays on Adult Swim.
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