Adult Swim’s Newsreaders Season 2 Premiere Preview [VIDEO, PHOTOS, INTERVIEWS] 

Newsreaders is Adult Swim’s answer to The Daily Show. It’s a quarter-hour comedy offering an unapologetic, absurdist view of the news today. What makes it funny isn’t so much the ‘news’ stories themselves but the way in which they are presented. Neat fact: Rob Corddry is one of the executive producers on this show that is actually a spinoff of his Emmy Award-winning comedy, Childrens Hospital.

Starting tomorrow night, the fun series is back with a brand new season.

Season 2 synopsis: Newsreaders, which satirizes the television newsmagazine format, will continue to bring viewers inspiring and thought-provoking stories that are neither of those things. From motor-boating dads to alien abductions, “GoNadz” for your vehicle to go-to cures for jellyfish stings, Newsreaders has the stories that literally will change the face of America. Literally.

Season two of Newsreaders is filled with exciting guest stars including Scott Adsit, Malin Akerman, Billy Ray Cyrus, Jenna Fischer, Rob Huebel, Tom Lennon, Randall Park, Danny Pudi, Rob Riggle, Martin Starr,  and James Urbaniak, with David Hasselhoff kicking things off in the premiere episode.

In anticipation of its sophomore season, executive producers Jonathan Stern, Jim Margolis, and David Wain as well as cast members Ray Wise (Skip Reming) and Alison Becker (Xandra Dent) sat down with writers and reporters to discuss what makes this show unique in a sea of mockumentary TV.

What’s new for season 2?

Jonathan Stern: One of the nice things about this season is the expansion of more characters and more correspondents.

Jim Margolis: There are multiple guest stars in every episode. It’s given us the chance to just cram a lot more jokes into the show. It’s proven to be a winning formula.

Tell us about the new host, Alan Tudyk.

Jonathan: Well Mather Zickel (host of season one) was unavailable due to a new TV series, but David and I had both worked with Alan Tudyk before and loved him.

David Wain: And it was a very enjoyable and long process just coming up with the name ‘Reagan Biscayne’.

Jonathan: It literally took us as long to come up with the perfect name as it did to come up with the right actor.

David: Alan Tudyk is genius. You might remember him from “Knocked Up”.

Jonathan: Or “Firefly” is what he has legions of followers from.

Why do you think these fake news shows are so popular?

David: Maybe because serious news shows are so depressing? (Laughs)

Jim: We do try to make things funny on their own merits as opposed to in the context of what they’re referencing or drawing on.

Alison Becker: ‘Newsreaders’ is different because it’s more making fun of the style of news in general and how out of control it’s gotten. It’s just all hyped up graphics.

Ray Wise: Exploitation.

Alison: Exactly. There’s no real information coming out of it. And Newsreaders is just a straight up parody about how ridiculous it’s gotten.

Are any of the newscasters on the show inspired by real people?

Jonathan: Last year we had Dan Rather on the show.

Jim: I would say that in spirit Skip Reming is Andy Rooney. I don’t know what Jim Davidson is.

David (who also portrays commentator Jim Davidson in addition to being an EP): To me he’s inspired in part by the guy who used to write the back cover humor pieces in American Airlines Magazine. So banal I wanted to throw up.

Ray: Skip Reming is the old irascible anchor who comments on the modern foibles in our society, things he can’t quite understand and pretty much detests. My character is somewhat based on my father, a WW2 vet. He had very set in cement ideas about mostly everything. He wasn’t quite as prejudiced as Skip is though.

Alison: Xandra is like one of those G4 type or online tech hosts who is like ‘I’ll show you the new iPhone but also my butt.’ She’s definitely more concerned about her cosplay outfits and weird hair and makeup than she is about an actual news story. She’s a lot of fun to play.

Xandra has a multitude of costume changes in her segments. Did one costume really stand out?

Alison: I loved the dressing up. My thirteen-year-old self was like ‘This is what you do for a living?!’ But there was one dress that was real meat. A dress made of sausage. They made it on a Friday and then they kept it in a cooler until we shot on Monday. And we didn’t realize that when it thawed it would be like wet. It was pretty gross, but I survived. It was worth it for that two second shot.

What else can we look forward to this season?

Jim: There are many episodes with Skip in them. There’s an episode where Xandra learns how sausage is made.

Alison: Hence the meat dress.

Jim: And another we’re very excited about is a segment about something called F–k Dancing.

David: Kind of like dirty dancing.

Jim: They’ll never figure it out. Just don’t tell them what it is.

Ray: Sometimes we look at a script and we’re like ‘We’re really going to do this? Really going to say this?’ I experience that all the time. I love that. It’s thrilling.

Alison: Yeah, it’s exciting because there’s certain shows you work on and you see the script and you go ‘We’re probably going to shoot that, but it’s never going to make it to the final cut.’ On Newsreaders it makes it to the final cut.

David: As unbiased an objective as I can possible be, I would say it’s probably the funniest and maybe best television show on the air.

Ray: It’s a laugh every five or six seconds.

Alison: Every four and a half seconds – for my episodes.

The second season of Newsreaders premieres tomorrow night at Midnight ET/PT on Adult Swim.

Season 2 Trailer