Cuphead Creators Chad and Jared Moldenhauer found their world turned upside down when they signed a deal with Netflix to produce The Cuphead Show!. Gone was the shoot-from-the-hip style they opted for Cuphead‘s boss fights replaced with the very methodical storyboarding that comes with creating an animated series.
In the game, Cuphead faces off against various bosses to collect their soul contract in the name of the devil. The Cuphead Show! allowed more nuance for the characters and the storylines to bounce off each other in crazy ways only animation could allow. The different styles mean neither of them see much overlap between the game and the new Netflix show — at least for now. “As it is, we’re completing the DLC, which was its own planned entity,” says Jared. “We’re not at that point yet to think about what exactly will be in future games, but I think we’ll have to make a decision when the time comes.”
But the Netflix series opens up the possibility for Cuphead’s new attitudes to exist in a kind of parallel universe. Characters could be reinvented, taken from their locations and placed in new situations against twin protagonists Cuphead and Mugman.
“[We want] this 80’s style arcade game that’s really fast. we actually think What can we cut out of the story? What can we remove from the dialogue to speed up the player to the game stages?” Chad says. “And on the show, it’s like, no, how do we build on these characters?”
While Chad and Jared only acted as consultants for the Netflix show, figuring out what characters should and shouldn’t do, they were curious about what their characters might be outside of the confines of the video game’s adversarial positioning.
Working with Netflix’s writers, they found few areas that needed explanation. Indeed, Hilda Berg was not a robot as conceived by the Moldenhauers; The audience didn’t need to know why Mugman and Cuphead were living with Elder Kettle.
“I’m not a big fan of backstories – which doesn’t mean there isn’t a backstory! But I like it when some things still have that air of mystery,” says Jared.
“I keep going back silence of the Lambs For some reason, Hannibal Lecter is so much more interesting when you’re not sure about every aspect of him. But every minute you’re doing 20 more sequels […] It’s like that character suddenly disappears.”
And so we get Cuphead, Mugman, and many of the game’s characters, all of which (sometimes literally) ricochet across the Inkwell Isles. That may seem strange The Cuphead Show! is most reminiscent of children’s cartoons – almost without a wink to an adult in the room – when it’s based on a notoriously difficult video game.
But if asked, the Moldenhauers will once again remind people that the whole Cuphead world is based on their childhood passions — “It’s a lot easier than anything in the ’80s!” — and they wanted the show to do so has the same mood.
“We’ve always had a bit of a mindset about making our games for everyone,” says Chad. “Not necessarily to say that the difficulty or how many hours you have to put in is for everyone. But the idea that the theme works well for everyone.”