{"id":718543,"date":"2026-06-06T07:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T07:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/718543\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T07:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T07:29:11","slug":"among-us-showrunner-refused-to-make-an-adaptation-frozen-in-2020-era-meme-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/718543\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Among Us’ Showrunner Refused to Make an Adaptation Frozen in 2020-Era Meme Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Way back in 2023, CBS officially announced that its next animated series would be an adaptation of Innersloth\u2019s smash-hit 2018 space murder mystery video game Among Us<\/a>. Now, three years later, the show\u2019s stacked cast of Hollywood actors<\/a> called for an emergency meeting at Summer Game Fest<\/a>, resulting in the surprise premiere of all 10 episodes on Paramount+.<\/p>\n

Among Us, which is animated by Titmouse (Star Trek: Lower Decks<\/a>), follows an assortment of monochromatic crewmates aboard a ship transporting junk across space. Hidden among them is an alien taking them out one by one. Their task is to put their collective noggins together and suss out which of them is the imposter before there are no crewmates left.<\/p>\n

Ahead of Among Us\u2018 premiere, we spoke with showrunner Owen Dennis (Infinity Train) about how the series landed on its eclectic cast of actors, as well as his philosophy for adapting a video game into a television show nearly a decade after it skyrocketed into a global sensation.<\/p>\n

Among Us has an absolutely stacked cast, spanning actors from video games, animated shows, and comedy. The cast includes Yvette Nicole Brown (Community) as Orange, Kimiko Glenn (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) as Cyan, Liv Hewson (Yellowjackets) as Black, Ashley Johnson (The Last Of Us) as Purple, Wayne Knight (Seinfeld) as Lime, Phil LaMarr (Samurai Jack) as Brown, Randall Park (Blue Eye Samurai) as Red, Dan Stevens (Solar Opposites) as Blue, Debra Wilson (Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots) as Yellow and Computer, Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings) as Green, and Patton Oswalt (Goat) as White. Assembling the right group to breathe life into little jellybean-looking crewmates proved no small task for Dennis.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the difficult things about casting Among Us is that all the characters kind of look the same. They have different outfits, but they look pretty similar, so [we needed to] make sure each voice definitely sounds like a different person,\u201d Dennis said. \u201cFor us, there\u2019s no mouth movement and no faces. Because of that, if you have a whole group of people and they\u2019re all standing there and one of them is talking, you have to know which of them is actually talking without a mouth moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cIt was really important for us to make sure that we get actors who are very good and can express things using comedy, drama, or any direction that we need them to go. And also, their voice is unique enough that I know exactly which person is talking at any given moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the guidelines for what Among Us needed in assembling a crew of actors to bring its larger-than-life jellybean dudes to life were clear, Dennis admits that even then, it still proved a difficult hump to overcome, which is why he\u2019s especially grateful they landed the stacked cast they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we landed on who we landed on, it all felt very natural and very good. I\u2019m very happy with everyone we have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With the show\u2019s announcement coming three years after the game\u2019s pandemic\u2011era peak, a cavalcade of internet memes burning their way into the internet\u2019s collective conscience, and video game adaptations being a hit-or-miss venture for die-hards, it wouldn\u2019t be out of line to guess that some fans might harbor a lingering concern that the CBS show might become a dated time capsule of that very specific moment in time. And the radio silence since 2023\u2014followed by a shadow\u2011drop\u2014likely spiked anxiety for fans who\u2019d half\u2011forgotten the series was even in development until today\u2019s surprise announcement.<\/p>\n

\"Among\u00a9Titmouse\/Paramount+ <\/p>\n

When asked whether he or the writers\u2019 room worried that Among Us\u2018 cultural moment had passed\u2014and whether that possibility added pressure to make a show that was prescient rather than tethered to 2020\u2014Dennis didn\u2019t flinch, saying he didn\u2019t let the noise affect him doing his job. That job, in his words, was to \u201cmake an animated show based on this video game that is supposed to be funny.\u201d He then followed up that response with a remark that felt like the modus operandi that any showrunner adapting a video game would be wise to follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cComedies are products of their time. All media is a product of its time. As much as people try to pretend that they\u2019re making something timeless or can last forever, everything is a product of its time. You can\u2019t escape that. But what can really make something very obviously a product of its time is a lot of referential humor. And references are sort of the lowest tier of joke because it\u2019s not really a joke. It\u2019s just you saying something and then someone else being like, \u2018I know that thing.\u2019 That\u2019s not a joke. That\u2019s just saying something that somebody knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

As such, Dennis made sure that Among Us didn\u2019t lean on referential humor. Instead, the show endeavored to craft jokes that made sense for its characters, situation, and comedic tone, with an emphasis on \u201cno big specific references or anything like that.\u201d Plus, Dennis pointed out that trying to incorporate pop culture memes, especially in hand-drawn shows like Among Us, is a fool\u2019s errand in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnimation takes so long to make that if you tried to make a pop culture reference to something right now, by the time it came out, it\u2019s dated as soon as you start doing it because it would be so many years after it came out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want [Among Us] to stand on its own. I think it\u2019s important anytime you\u2019re adapting anything, it has to be something that fans of the thing are going to like, but also it needs to be able to stand completely on its own without having to know the previous works or the meta-narrative around the work or any of that sort of stuff. It has to be completely its own thing. If you can do that, then you can achieve something. But if you don\u2019t do that, you end up with something that just feels weird, empty, and bizarre. I would hate to work on something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

All 10 episodes of Among Us are streaming on Paramount+.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Way back in 2023, CBS officially announced that its next animated series would be an adaptation of Innersloth\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[260029,789,49,48,75,9489,260030,348],"class_list":["post-718543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-among-us","tag-animation","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-paramount","tag-titmouse","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}