Netflix’s new animated film Thelma the Unicorn is stuffed with soulful rock music, however one quantity stands out like a neon-colored sore thumb: “Right here Comes the Cud.” And that’s deliberate. Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie designed “Right here Comes the Cud” to be as disgustingly catchy and artificial as potential. Making a viral sensation — or a minimum of, a quantity that would move for a viral sensation inside a film’s fictional world — is a tall order. Thelma administrators Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) and Lynn Wang (Cartoon Community’s UniKitty! collection) talked to Polygon about how they conceived and deliberate it.
As pony-masquerading-as-a-unicorn Thelma (Brittany Howard) chases fame, her supervisor Vic Diamond (McKenzie’s Flight of the Conchords companion Jemaine Clement) units her up with super-popular social-media influencer Danny Stallion (Fred Armisen), whose complete schtick is regurgitating cud for his followers.
Wang says the filmmakers appeared to real-world on-line habits to form the character. “Danny was type of simply an amalgamation of every kind of over-the-top influencers,” she says.
Picture: Netflix
Thelma and Danny faux to have a relationship for the PR worth, simply to whip up some intrigue and romance for his or her followers, and Vic decides they need to collaborate on a music. At first, Thelma is raring, presenting a binder of songs near the highly effective rock ballads she sings to start with of the film. However Vic says superstars don’t write their very own songs: “The Algorithm” does it for them.
He places a request right into a machine known as “Bridget,” and it spits out “Right here Comes the Cud,” a music with a catchy-yet-soulless beat, simplistic lyrics, and an over-the-top music video set on a yacht. It’s extremely catchy, but its lyrics are about hacking up partially digested meals, and it’s punctuated by burps and different bodily noises. It’s a far cry from the emotional, extra private songs Thelma belts out in a barn at first of the film. For Flight of the Conchords followers, its straight-faced humor, synthy music, and rap rhythms will even sound distinctly acquainted.
“We needed to set up Thelma’s model of music and what sort of music was true to her that got here out of her naturally, after which present the way it will get corrupted by fame and stardom,” Hess says. “So it was enjoyable to have the ability to present that distinction. As soon as it will get to ‘Right here Comes the Cud,’ all of it goes downhill.”
The distinction between the music Thelma writes for herself and the music the highest stars on the planet makes was very clearly outlined. Wang and Hess collaborated with the film’s songwriters and music producers to map out how that dynamic performed into Thelma’s arc.
“Taura Stinson, Bret McKenzie, and all our songwriters actually understood Thelma’s journey and what actually wanted to enter all the lyrics to actually assist increase that emotional journey of hers,” says Wang. “But in addition making it actually enjoyable on the identical time. Bret actually introduced the humor. It was actually nice.”
Thelma the Unicorn is streaming on Netflix now.
