We Talked to the Creator of 'Regular Show' About the Final Season

Rigby the racoon and Mordecai the bluejay have been to the moon, a Chuck-E-Cheese-esque fun zone, the temple of the dreaded Sandwich of Death, an ancient underground mall, and Dumptown, USA, to name but a few. The lovable slackers and stars of Cartoon Network's Regular Show have been through all sorts of off-kilter adventures in their seven seasons on air, and their final eighth season is set to take place entirely in space. The show’s beloved by fans of all ages because of its wonderful weirdness, and a willingness to tell strange, joyfully meandering stories. As we head into the final season, Regular Show creator and executive producer JG Quintel tells The Creators Project about the creation of the show, some of his favorite moments, and what viewers can expect.

Quintel says some of his favorite moments from the show come from the very early days, when “everything was new and exciting. And we were just setting up the series, but then moving on as the characters developed we got into these richer, more intricate stories.” Is writing a show like Regular Show, where magic abounds and nearly anything is possible, in some ways harder to write than a more grounded series? Quintel says “it definitely became more difficult as we went along because we’ve done so many episodes that, in our writer’s room we’d come up with a really great idea and be like ‘Ah, it’s too similar to that one!’ We always want to make sure that they feel different and unique. But it’s really fun. We had a freeform writing game that we would play where we’d throw titles into a hat and everyone has to type up episodes in two minutes based on those titles. And if anything made everybody laugh we’d all focus on that and try to turn it into a story.”

What does Quintel, as creator of the show, actually do on a day-to-day basis? A little bit of everything, “I’m in charge of making sure that [the show] stays true to itself, and is something that I really want to see.” He describes taking part in the writer’s room, overseeing storyboard art, dealing with studio notes, watching animatics, reviewing art approvals, and to top that all off, he also plays the role of main character Mordecai, so he’s recording in the booth for each episode. “The main part of my job is: whatever was funny about that initial story in the outline, I try to track it and make sure there’s no point in the process where that’s lost.”

As for the upcoming final season, Quintel says they’re going big. He explains that he was always very up-front with Cartoon Network, saying that they shouldn’t be afraid to come to him when it was time to end the show. “When we decided that this was enough,” he explains, “we had this idea of what we wanted to do. And as we crafted the season, and I’m not going to give any spoilers, but Regular Show is usually standalone episodes, but our season eight is fully serialized, and you’re going to want to watch them all because it’s going to pay off and be this huge overarching story for the whole season, and kind of to tie up the whole series.” But don’t worry, newcomers, “If you haven’t seen it at all, it’ll still be a fun season to watch.”

Quintel’s enthusiasm for his final season is infectious, and he’s not afraid to talk bluntly about the creative process. “Even sending them to space was a big thing, where we were like ‘is there a way to do this where it isn’t lame?’ [Laughs] We wanted to make sure that it would actually be cool, and I’m really excited for people to see it.”

Regular Show Season 8 premieres on Cartoon Network on Monday, Sept. 26 at 8 PM (ET/PT).

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