I had the pleasure of moderating the Teen Titans GO! panel this weekend at WonderCon 2017, and I got to see first-hand the spell that these folks — particularly the voice actors, Greg Cipes (Beast Boy) and Scott Menville (Robin) — cast on fans young and old alike. You can watch the full panel in the video above, but I was fortunate enough to get to talk to Greg Cipes one-on-one just before the panel, and he talked about the broad appeal of Teen Titans GO! and his involvement with the name behind another big franchise…Star Trek!
I asked him whether he noticed a difference in the demographics of the fans of the show between doing the original Teen Titans and moving on to Teen Titans GO! “I’ve just noticed with Teen Titans GO! that everyone loves our show,” he said. “It’s not just the kids of a younger generation, it’s the parents that watch it, it’s everybody in between. Whereas maybe the original Teen Titans [had] a more specific demographic and it stayed within that. I think Teen Titans GO!, as much as little kids love it, it’s a show for us. We make it for everybody. It’s just hilarious comedy.”
He’s especially proud of the way that girls can see themselves in the show, and he talked about how he made a certain conscious choice about Beast Boy in order to, in his own small way, honor women and girls.
“[Teen Titans GO! is] very easy to enjoy…something that you can just enjoy no matter what age you are. Especially girls,” Cipes enthuses. “We’ve got great female characters like Raven and Starfire, and as an actor, and a worshiper of goddesses, I brought in the lingo of calling all women ‘mama.’ Beast Boy calls all women ‘mama,’ and that was my doing, because I believe that all women are mama. They are our divine mother. That was really cool that I got to implement that into the show.”
We didn’t get into Cipes’ actual, personal religious beliefs, or what he meant when he said “a worshiper of goddesses.” While I know that some might balk at the notion that women are divine simply because of motherhood, I took his gesture to be one of the utmost respect.
Our conversation then turned to his personal projects. He’s also a musician. Indeed, he’s contributed songs to Teen Titans GO! However, the thing I’m most excited about is the fact that he’s currently producing an animated series with Roddenberry Productions that is (sort of) related to Star Trek!
“I’m Executive Producing a new show with Roddenberry [Productions]…a new animated series where I play Barry — it’s Rod and Barry, about two aliens that come down to Earth to destroy Earth, but they don’t, because they fall in love with pop culture. So, I’m stepping into creating and producing a lot more, because I’m just infinitely inspired. I love what I do.”
Rod and Barry actually started life on the Roddenberry Productions website as an adorable web comic. It’s cool to see that they’re taking the idea further, and with someone as multi-talented as Cipes involved, it’s definitely something to keep an eye out for!
Teen Titans GO! airs Fridays at 6:ooPM on Cartoon Network.
(image: screencap/Cartoon Network)
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