Creativity Quote by Craig McCracken

It reads like a shrug, but it’s a quiet flex: the cast wasn’t assembled by vibes, nepotism, or network decree. Craig McCracken’s plainspoken line signals a creator insisting on process, not mythology. In an entertainment culture that loves the narrative of lightning-in-a-bottle casting, “a series of auditions” is almost aggressively unromantic. That’s the point. He’s anchoring the show’s origins in workmanlike iteration: try people, listen, adjust, repeat.

The intent is defensive in a savvy way. Animation fans obsess over voice actors the way sports fans track trades; casting becomes lore, and lore becomes leverage in debates about authenticity. By emphasizing auditions “when we started the show,” McCracken underlines that the voices were discovered in the show’s formation, not retrofitted later to satisfy branding. It’s an implicit argument for authorship: the creator curated the human element to match the tone, pace, and comedic rhythm he wanted.

There’s also subtext about collaboration. An “artist” could easily frame the show as singular vision, but auditions acknowledge the medium’s reality: performance matters, even in animation, and a character isn’t fully alive until someone embodies them. The line’s casual grammar (“thru”) adds to the vibe of behind-the-scenes candor, as if he’s puncturing fan speculation with a practical answer.

Contextually, it lands as a corrective to a common misconception: that animated performances are interchangeable. McCracken’s sentence reminds you that the voice is design, too.