Adult Swim : I Should Watch That - Interview with Ed Boon

Ed Boon is the co-creator of the long-running blood-soaked Mortal Kombat games, which is getting a similarly gory reboot on April 19. The games, in addition to drawing congress' rage for their over-the-top violence, also famously inspired an entire generation to scream, "Get over here!" We phoned up the Chicago game designer for an I Should Watch That in which, among other things, Boon revealed why he's a closet Survivor fan and why in 2011 he's finally ready to talk about shows that went off the air early last decade.

Six Feet Under

Well, somebody turned me onto Six Feet Under. I systematically went through all five seasons. I knew I wasn't going to be able to watch them as they came in so I got them and would transfer them to my iPod and I would watch them on plane trips, because I go to Burbank a lot, or when I work out, and I went through all five seasons just doing that. It took about a year.

What was it about how it was recommended to you that made you rip each season and stick with it so long without seeing much of it?

Well, somebody bought me the first season on DVD, and I watched one episode, and then I watched the rest of the season over the next two days or something crazy like that. I saw there were four more seasons on Netflix, so I went that route. I mean, this was mailing them and stuff like that. I had this whole system going where I would get it, copy it, and send it right back. I wanted to speed up the process. Five seasons is a lot of stuff to go through. I just had this system down.

“I had this whole system going where I would get it, copy it, and send it right back.”

So you liked the show, then?

Yeah, I thought it was great. Ironically, after going through that whole crazy rigmarole I ended up buying all five seasons after that. So it was a big waste of time in a lot of respects because I saw it for a really crazy price on Amazon and said, "Oh, I'm just gonna go ahead and do it." So, the ones that I bought I never watched because I've already seen them.

But I thought the first three seasons, maybe, were just amazing. The first two were certainly amazing, and the first one was the best one. What was interesting was because I wasn't on the bandwagon with everyone else when it was on, so I just heard about this very crazy thing that they did at the end. And I don't want to spoil this for anyone… so when they killed off a big character in the show I was like, "Oh my God, how are they going to do that?" So that was this driving force to get me to the end of season five, because at the end of season four they got weird and funny and stuff. I didn't think they were taking it as seriously as they were in the very beginning. But again, in the end, when they killed off that character, and there's this whole sequence where they show how every single character in the show dies. I thought that was amazing. That made the whole season four worth suffering through to get to that point. It's the best series finale I've ever seen.

“I thought that was amazing. That made the whole season four worth suffering through to get to that point.”

Well, for a show about death they had to do something like that to drive it home and not make viewers removed from experiencing it. That ending was pretty powerful, pretty much everyone was in tears after seeing it.

I was one of them. It was weird because when I got my boxed version of all five seasons, it has all these extras. One of them is this book called In Memoriam or something, and it's got a paragraph on every character. How they were born, how they died. And I'm reading this, and you're getting really emotional, and you just forget that these are made-up characters. It really hit home, though, that whole sequence of all of them dying. You really feel bad for the ones that were left behind and all that. It's really an amazing show. So that really consumed my watching for a long time.

It was just one of those shows that I missed. Now I'm trying to catch up on Dexter. Like I watched the first season and I'm just starting the second one, and again, I think that's a great show too. But maybe because I'm working on games, I have a tendency to hear people talking about a show and not being on the bandwagon. And then I come back and then I say, "Oh my God, what a great show," and people are like, "Yeah, five years ago." But I never sit down to watch a TV show. Like, "It's Thursday night, I'm going to watch Survivor." I never do that. My DVR grabs everything, and then when I have the time, I'll watch things based on what I'm feeling like watching. It's really weird how my habits have changed.

We're probably the last generation that will remember appointment television.

And you can watch stuff online, too. I would have this panic, if there was this show that I watch and I missed it or my DVR didn't record it or it was pre-empted because of a news thing or something. But now I'm like, "Yeah, whatever, I'll find it somewhere. I'll go on some site or ask somebody to download it." That stuff just doesn't happen anymore. The only stuff you watch when it happens is sporting events. A lot of people just do that and avoid the news so they don't find out who won.

“But now I'm like, ‘Yeah, whatever, I'll find it somewhere. I'll go on some site or ask somebody to download it.’”

Well, when you can just buy an entire season or series on DVD, it's easier and quicker in a way. You bypass spending months watching it as it airs and can do it in an entire weekend instead.

That's exactly it. And you don't deal with commercials, waiting a week, stuff like that. In my head, eventually, I'm going to borrow somebody's version of Lost, because I've never seen an episode of that. I've never seen Heroes. I've never seen an episode of The Sopranos, and that's a big deal. I want to borrow all nine seasons of that and just blast through. There are some pretty big shows that I just missed for whatever reason.

The Sopranos

The Godfather and Goodfellas are in my top-five favorite movies of all time easily. So I guess some of [what appeals to me about The Sopranos] is the subject matter. There was nine years of hearing people talk about the show and not knowing what they're talking about and hearing, oh, they killed this character. Thank God it was so long ago that I don't remember. You hear enough people talking about how great a show is and eventually curiosity takes over. Dexter was kinda like that, but it has one of the guys from Six Feet Under as the main character. So there's a little bit of, "Oh, he did good work before and I'll watch that." But it's weird how you have the option of catching up with a TV show now.

I don't want to make a sweeping generalization, but you mention Six Feet Under, Dexter, and The Sopranos. Do shows about death, or where death is a part of almost every episode, usually interest you more than shows that don't have that?

No. [Laughs.] You'd probably think so with Mortal Kombat, but primarily it's just hearing people talk about them. All I'd hear is, "Oh, that show Dexter is awesome." You hear that 20 times in a row and then at some point curiosity just takes over. Those just happened to be the shows people talked about. Lost is another one, and I hear that Heroes, the first few seasons are pretty good, and then it got bad and then it got better again or something. I read a lot of comics when I was a kid, so that interests me. From what I can gather, a lot of people gave up on it. I think I heard a little bit of that about Lost as well.

I keep hearing about Mad Men. People tell me it's a great show. I hadn't seen it. I see it win awards. There's something about missing the first few episodes that makes me reluctant. Certainly I'll never start a show in the third season. I gotta go rent, buy, or borrow the earlier seasons to catch up with everybody. Which I bet is affecting TV ratings. People don't want to jump into the middle of a show and pick it up.

“People don't want to jump into the middle of a show and pick it up.”

Has there ever been a TV show or a movie you just absolutely had to be there on day one to get behind?

24

24 was certainly one of them. I think they had like eight seasons, and I watched the first six on my DVR. I missed the last two because I was working on a game or something at the time. I had since purchased them on DVD, but that show was just so ridiculous. The situations they were presenting to this character were so extreme. They were doing things that you never think you'd do. A lot of rules that cop shows have, like, never kill this character or that character, this show broke all that. Like, you never have the good guy kill a good person? They had situations where they forced Kiefer Sutherland's character to kill a good person, and he did it, and you're just like, "Holy s***." Things that they would never cross the line of, they did. He decapitated someone in the show. You wouldn't think that somebody would do that, a good guy, decapitate someone.

“He decapitated someone in the show. You wouldn't think that somebody would do that, a good guy, decapitate someone.”

Doesn't he torture people, too?

Oh, yeah, a few times. The first time he did it, it was like, "Ooh, shocking!" And then they just had to keep raising the bar. If they did a 24 movie, I would certainly go see it.

Speaking of TV shows that make the leap to movies, have you been following the whole Arrested Development movie saga? Are you hoping it gets made?

I've never seen one episode of Arrested Development. I've seen quick scenes of it, and a couple of them made me laugh. The Jason Bateman guy is the only sane guy and everyone else is crazy? I keep hearing the name Tobias, so that sticks out in my mind because I worked with [Mortal Kombat co-creator] John Tobias.

Other than 24, is there any other sort of long-running series you're still keeping up with?

Believe it or not, I still watch Survivor. I've been watching since it first came on 10 years ago. I still have my DVR record it whenever it's on. Every single season I've seen. There's something about the way they edit it together, but they really can establish the characters. They get 20 random people, and they gotta build a soap opera out of it. I guess admittedly part of me is just intrigued about how they put it together. They decide who the villain is. It's really funny. "This guy's going to be this year's a**hole." They fall into these categories and it's funny, but it's still interesting. I see some of the tricks that they do. I go, "Oh, okay, they're trying to make it look like it's this guy who's going to be voted off, but it's this guy." I'm usually right but every once in a while they'll get me. I don't know why I still watch it.

Survivor

I used to watch a lot more [reality shows] than just Survivor. I'm embarrassed to admit this but I used to watch that show Big Brother. A bunch of people stuck in a house, and cabin fever drives them crazy and you get to people yelling at each other. [Laughs.] That show really started catering to the lowest common denominator. It got trashy. But Survivor's the one that really stuck around for me. It's one of the first reality shows, ironically.