El Superbeasto strolls onto DVD from Starz Media and Film Roman. All images, unless otherwise noted, courtesy of Starz.

R-rated 2D animation production in the United States is rare. But when Film Roman set out to produce animation on its own it acquired Rob Zombie's comic book The Haunted World of El Superbeasto to change that. Over the course of the five-year production Film Roman would become part of Starz and various execs and artists would be involved on the project. But nearly from the start, producer Tom Klein has been a part of the production.

Klein is an animation vet having worked on such productions as Mighty Mouse, the New Adventures, FernGully and currently The Simpsons. While Rob Zombie served as the director and was very hands on with the project, Klein supervised the crew while Zombie was off on other commitments.

And boy did they turn out an R-rated extravaganza. With lots of sex, violence and raunchy humor, this one's an original. To learn more about this outrageous show, I talked with Klein about his experiences.

Tom Klein.

Tom Klein: When the project started life originally as a much smaller project, it was going to be a very low-budget direct-to-DVD. It was based on Rob [Zombie's] comic book and they had started developing the story down a path that Rob Zombie wasn't happy with, so they brought me on at a point in time when they had already started developing the story. I came on to create a plan that would allow the movie to be produced the way it exists now.

So it started with working with Rob Zombie to revise the script then assemble the crew to do the pre-production on it. I oversaw the casting with Rob Zombie, who had approval over everything, but I did all the casting, found all the voices and did the deals for the talent. I set up and oversaw all the voice sessions that we did.

We did this show on a [2D TV animation model], where we did the pre-production here at Film Roman and then we shipped our materials to Korea. Big Star Animation did the animation in Korea and then they ship that back and we do post-production here. So I found Big Star and went over there and worked with them to create the animation.

I supervised the crew for the run of the show. Rob Zombie, during the course of the production, was a busy guy and did quite a few different things. He was off on tour several times and had a new CD come out and several movies come out. I believe Halloween went into production and was completed during the course of our production. So while he was away, I'd direct the crew, following Rob's direction. Sort of the beyond the floor part of it -- getting the scenes working and making things correct to be sent to Korea. And as I said, I went to Korea and directed that studio and then came back and oversaw all the post-production. I found mixers and sound supervisors. Hired the art director early on.

I managed the project at Film Roman pretty much all the way through. I got us more money when we needed more money, and took it all the way to delivery.

RD: How was the collaborative process with Rob Zombie?