MD: Ricky said he loves Hanna-Barbera and wanted it to have a lovely, sweet, funny feel to it because they rag on Karl and it could seem mean-spirited, but because they're funny drawings, it softens that harshness.

BD: And what was Ricky's concept for his own caricature?

MD: We did one pass of drawings and told us that we were over thinking it and that it was way too sophisticated. And then he did some sketches of the three of them and sent them to us and then we did another version just to make them more animation characters -- and he loved it. At some point he thought his character should look like a combination of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, which is pretty much what we got.

BD: What about the backgrounds?

MD: That was especially Craig. When I asked him what his inspiration was, he said Hanna-Barbera and Jay Ward and that whole era of animation. We were fortunate to get Craig to work with us on this: he's an amazingly gifted designer.

The '60s are alive and well in this week's episode six. Courtesy of Karl Pilkington and HBO.

BD: What background stands out in particular?

MD: In the first episode there's this great little walk cycle where Stephen is talking about traveling the world and we go to every place in the world. I just think that they're all just beautiful and painterly.

BD: How quick a turnaround do you have for each episode?

MD: Given that the first season it takes a while to figure out what the show is, we're probably talking around 23 weeks.

BD: How many podcasts were there?

MD: I know there were four or five seasons, and the first two seasons were 13 episodes, coincidentally. But the subsequent seasons were shorter. So we hope to keep going until Ricky tells us otherwise. But since we haven't received an order for a second season, we haven't sat down with him and said, "OK, now what?"

BD: And what's it been like working out the timing?

MD: Ricky's very sensitive to comedic timing. Once we cut a few seconds off a pause and he told us that it was important to put it back in. So we're pretty faithful to the podcasts, but there were times when we had to open it up a little bit to play a visual joke out. And then other places we tightened it up. It's been pretty straightforward.

BD: What does Ricky think of the series?

MD: He was in town for the Emmys and we got this call saying he'd be there in 20 minutes. So it was pretty cool to have him watch the first episode with everybody. He was really intense: he sat with his legs crossed and he had his hand on his chin. He was focused, and he came up with some really astute comments. And he was very gracious with everybody: he talked to each person and looked at what they were working on and made jokes. It was very exciting for us. He said he'd like to do these forever. That's what I hope.

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN & VFXWorld.