Hulu’s ‘Koala Man’ Wants To Deliver Laughs That Are ‘Unapologetically Australian’

Pop quiz! How many Australian superheroes can you name off the top of your head?

For most audiences in the United States, the list of Aussie comic book characters probably begins and ends with the villain known as Captain Boomerang, despite the fact that the Marvel and DC catalogues boast a litany of crimefighters and baddies from the Land Down Under.

Hulu seeks to change all that with its new animated series — Koala Man (now streaming) — which centers around Kevin Williams, a regular suburban dad and slightly inept Australian vigilante just trying to do some good in his quiet hometown of Dapto.

That’s not always the easiest thing in the world to do when you’re just a mortal man going up against Outback musician-cannibals and a Tinder-swiping Lovecraftian horror from another dimension. The project hails from creator Michael Cusack, whose “Koala Man” shorts on YouTube caught the attention of Rick and Morty’s Justin Roiland, who ended up as an executive producer on the show.

“I was coming to LA more and pitching shows, and it made sense to develop that into a family sitcom,” Cusack, who also voices the marsupial-inspired do-gooder, tells me over Zoom. “Make him like the Homer Simpson, the dad of an Australian family — and try to fit in with the other shows like the Futuramas, the Simpsons, the King of the Hills. But do it in an Aussie way and put a superhero spin on it.”

The end result was something “unapologetically Australian,” says Demi Lardner, voice of Koala Man’s power-hungry teenage daughter, Alison.

American viewers with little to no knowledge of Australian culture are in for a crash course on everything from show bags to handball to Tall Poppy Syndrome to the the Great Emu War, and the commonplace use of the dreaded C-word.

“I really would like to be able to say the word ‘c**t*’ more when I’m in America. So if you guys could take that on, that’d be really good,” Lardner jokes. “It’s barely even a swear word over here.”

“I grew up watching The Simpsons,” Cusack says. “They were American and I still understood it, even though some words I didn’t understand because they were specific to American culture. I just thought, ‘Why not try it the other way around?’”

While many U.S.-based studios and producers often try to make “foreign” projects more digestible for North American consumers by demanding the addition of relatable American characters and references, Koala Man did the opposite.

“Our goal was always to enhance what Michael does and never to flatten his point-of-view. Never to say, ‘Oh, that’s too Australian. Oh, that’s too weird,’” explains Dan Hernandez, who co-developed the show alongside his writing partner, Benji Samit (the duo are known for their work on The Tick and Detective Pikachu) and Cusack. “We felt like we had this really special, unique person and the three of us developing this together can meld all those things into something that had the potential to not only be hilarious, but to actually tell a really good superhero story in a longform way.”

The driving force in the writers’ room, Samit continues, was not to shy away from concepts and storylines that might seem alien to the rest of the world. Rather, the unique facets of Australian life and attitudes offered a way out of the tropes and arcs that have been done to death by The Simpsons and Family Guy. “All of the Australian stuff is this untapped well of great ideas. Anytime something uniquely Australian was said, all of the American writers got so excited, wanting to hear more and see more.”

Koala Man’s unwavering commitment to representing Australia attracted an insanely high level of Aussie and Kiwi actors who agreed to be a part of the voice cast: Sarah Snook, Jemaine Clement, Rachel House, Hugo Weaving, Miranada Otto, and even Wolverine himself — Hugh Jackman. The X-Men alum in particular steals the show as the aptly-named Big Greg, Kevin’s boss on the Dapto city council and a former nature host clearly inspired by the late Steve Irwin.

“We always knew that we wanted Big Greg to be the most Australian man in the world,” Hernandez explains. “We felt like it was important to put Kevin in relationship to someone who was sort of effortlessly heroic and macho and all the things that Kevin secretly wishes that he were, but isn’t. So that was where the Big Greg character came from. And then we said, ‘Well, basically, we want to just write Hugh Jackman.’”

“[We knew it was] a long shot,” Samit says. “He loved it and he was excited and he hit it off with Michael. He was just excited that something so uniquely Australian was being made and he elevated everything we wrote and made it so much funnier.”

Cusack credits the dynamite voice cast to good ol’ American optimism. “They kind of aim for the stars,” the creator says. “They thought we could get the biggest Australian actors and I was like, ‘No, we can’t. We’re not going to be able to get them’ … I’m not used to collaborating or directing actors of that caliber, so it was a complete learning curve for me. But they elevated the show.”

“Some of the finest actors in the world agreed to be in this crazy show,” Hernandez concludes. “That’s only emboldened us. If we’re fortunate enough to go into Season 2…who else could we get? … We want all of the Lord of the Rings cast.”

Being listed among so many names has Larnder feeling the effects of the aforementioned Tall Poppy Syndrome. “It’s so weird … I’m listed amongst a lot of famous people [and] I am expecting to be completely hated by some of my peers.”

All eight episodes of Koala Man are now streaming on Hulu.