Black Dynamite’s Carl Jones, Michael Jai White & Byron Minns [VIDEO EXCLUSIVE]

CARL JONES: What was interesting was that when they did the movie, there was some animation in the movie, so there was already some ideas floating around. In order to make it into an animated series on their end, I personally got a bootleg copy of the movie, I got it early, before it came out. But when I saw the movie I thought this would make a really really dope animated series and consequently they reached out to my manager who said they liked the Black Dynamite guys and wanted to do an animated series, so we got into a room and started working on some ideas, and you know how to adapt it into an animated world. And we pitched it and the rest was history.

MICHAEL JAI WHITE: By far my favorite episode is the Michael Jackson episode, because I mean we satirized the most famous person who has ever lived on the planet. I say there is no argument to that, because if you are from five years old to 95 everybody in any country knew who this man was. And we did so you know, not pulling punches. It was actually a good example of what we do and I like the humor and some of the craziness, some of the real stuff that we brought out, like the background of where 'Shamone'€ came from, the world really did not know. But anyway we satirized something like that without much backlash whatsoever, I don't think any, because people this day and age are set on kind of a negative default and people want to criticize everything. JONES: And now they are with the Michael Jackson hologram. WHITE: Yeah there is constant criticism about everything, and we did this outlandishly thing about the most famous person to ever live and received no criticism behind it, only because I think we succeeded in the ridiculous part of it and if you criticize this you will make yourself look ridiculous, because you know we are not serious. Well the '€œShamone'€ part is serious, but most of the episode you know is satire. I'm proud of this episode, because it kind of goes under the wire in delivery. JONES: Or no one has seen it.

WHITE: There is so many man. There is Richard Pryor. JONES: I think my favorite episode would be the Michael Jackson episode, but I think my favorite character to lampoon, I think I would have to say Richard Pryor, because Eddie Griffin does such a dead-on Richard Pryor impression number one, because he spent a lot of time with Richard before he passed. Richard was almost like a father to him, so he had all those little quirks that really pop. I liked that one the most, because I don't think anyone has told a story from Richard's point of view, and I do not think anyone has seen that side of Richard Pryor, there is always, to go back to what Mike was saying, with Michael Jackson there is a common place, where comedians or comedy writers go when it comes to these big larger than life icons. You see Michael Jackson being the abused child all the time and you see Richard Pryor and his cocaine and everyone does all these jokes, but what about who Richard is as a person. You want to reveal the human side of him and you know still keep it funny, but give it heart. I think when we have those opportunities we open up a whole another space for the shows we are making. I do not think there's many television shows where you see them make fun of a pop culture icon like Michael Jackson and deliver a message. We have a great story about our main characters and how they play into that celebrities life.

BYRON MINNS: Lets see, we have Mr. Rodgers, Bill Cosby, Dick Clark, Don Cornelius. JONES: Woody Allen, Jaws [laughs]! MINNS: Bob Marley.

MINNS: It was one of the first things we came up with. I don'€™t know how it happened, but somewhere at the end of the day all of this leads up to whoever is in charge and at the time Nixon was in charge. WHITE: There's always that statement in blaxploitation movies where [characters say,] 'This goes all the way to the top!' So this one went all the way to the top. Also we wanted to impeach Nixon, because of Black Dynamite that we impeached him. JONES: I couldn't think of a more evil white man.