Spotlight on Scout Raskin – Producer of Comedy Central’s ‘TripTank’ comes to LIFF

With a few episodes left in its first season, Comedy Central’s animated sketch comedy TripTank has offended and confused audiences as well as gained a respectable number of viewers.

The growing fan base has surprised producer Scout Raskin, especially because the show’s format has no clear narrative or recurring characters.

“The response has been awesome,” she says. “Our ratings are really solid, and the network is happy with it. We’re optimistic we’ll get a season two.”

Before hopping on a plane for the Louisiana International Film Festival, Raskin had a few moments to talk about the show and how she got into animation.

She will make an appearance at the festival’s Women in Film panel at 11 a.m. Saturday. Two never-before-seen episodes of the show will also premiere Saturday at 3 p.m. The film festival takes place at Cinemark Perkins Rowe.

225: How did you get interested in animation?
Raskin: It’s all because of Craigslist. If I hadn’t gone there, I would in no way be making cartoons. I came out to L.A. in 2006, and I didn’t know anybody. I went on Craigslist to meet people and find friends. I met a few people and a friend of a friend helped me get a job in production accounting, which led to me working for ShadowMachine Productions (a stop-motion animation company that produces Robot Chicken). I had been writing a lot of live action scripts, but it was disappointing to me because I knew they would never see the light of day. Writing in animation, I could be free creatively, so I started writing and directing cartoons and sharing them with the people at Robot Chicken. They realized I could produce a cartoon and that I had the right sensibilities as a creative person to work on a show like TripTank.

225: Were there any cartoons in particular that creatively inspired you?
Raskin: The early cartoons of the ’20s and ’30s. At that time, animation was in its infancy. They played with the medium as much as possible. There’s an episode of Felix the Cat where he takes off his ears and uses them as ice cream cones. Seeing stuff like that freed my mind up to not have limitations. I liked the ability of those cartoons from 80 years ago to still be entertaining and relatable.

225: Watching TripTank, there’s a lot of button-pushing it seems. Have you gotten any negative backlash?
Raskin: To be honest, we haven’t. The network and show creators are pretty sensitive and aware of the issues that could be seen as targeting certain people. We try to stay with stuff that’s humorous across all demographics, stick to genuine humor. Part of it is not trying to shock, but doing something that throws people off their game. We see how far we can push it without being offensive.

225: How do you describe the show to those who haven’t watched it?
Raskin: It’s a crazy, wild ride where every 2-3 minutes you’re experiencing new characters and forms of humor. The strength of the show is that if you happen to turn it on and that sketch isn’t making you laugh, you’ll be on something else in a minute. There’s definitely a [what is this?] factor there, too.

225: Yeah, there is. Watching it reminded me of Wonder Showzen‘s cartoons a bit. Where do these ideas come from?
Raskin: We have an open submission policy for writers. We don’t have a staff of writers. We collect scripts and sketch ideas from all over the world. This season, we’ve had 40 different writers and creators involved in the show. We weren’t sure how it would come together. We got around 1,200 submissions and spent four months going through all of them, figuring out how things would work together.

225: Was there a type of humor that you didn’t want in the show?
Raskin: It’s a case-by-case basis. We don’t have bullet points, but we stay away from pop culture stuff. We want unique ideas and characters that hadn’t been seen before just because the nature of how long it takes to produce something in animation.