Andy Samberg's Digman! Animated Series Has Some Unexpected Classic Movie Influences [Exclusive]

When you have an adult animated series that's inspired by the like of Indiana Jones and "National Treasure," it would make sense if classic adventure movies provided a lot of inspiration. When it comes to Andy Samberg and Neil Campbell's new series "Digman!" on Comedy Central, that's certainly the case. But you might be surprised by the hefty helping of sci-fi that's thrown into the mix, and along with that come some unexpected allusions to other classic movies. Even films outside of the adventure and sci-fi arenas couldn't escape the comedic clutches of Rip Digman, a washed up archaeologist living in a world where these adventurers are huge celebrities. 

Leading up to the premiere of "Digman!" on Comedy Central this week, we spoke with series co-creators Andy Samberg and Neil Campbell, who revealed some of the surprising classic movies that inspired their absurd adventure antics in the eight episodes that make up the show's first season, but without ever doing a straight-up parody. 

Even though "Digman!" takes cues from familiar franchises, it's not ever an overarching genre parody like you'd see in projects like "Airplane!" or "Young Frankenstein." Instead, pop culture provides touchstones for comedy that are unique in how Rip Digman interacts with them. Campbell recalled a few of the films alluded to in the series:

"I would say the pilot even has a little bit of John Huston's 'The Man Who Would Be King,' as a little bit of an inspiration for that. When you get to episode 5, it has some design inspiration from 'Logan's Run.' It has some Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' inspiration. There's a character based on Jacqueline deWit's character in 'All That Heaven Allows.'"

So how does this differ from other animated shows that have paid homage to familiar films or TV shows? Campbell, who has worked on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," "The Simpsons," and Academy Awards show writing staffs, explained how they don't directly parody these movies:

"But I would say, as opposed to "The Simpsons,' where sometimes you're like, 'Here is a parody of '2001' or whatever,' it's more of like, sometimes this would inspire us, and we take it in our own direction. But there's not a lot of specific film parody scenes. There's definitely a lot of inspiration throughout the whole thing, for sure."

Within the first four episodes provided in advance for press, you'll see how some of this plays out. There's also a bit of "Die Hard," some of "The Goonies," and plenty of adventure and sci-fi to go around. It's not every day you get to see a show where a story includes the world being in chaos after the Ten Commandments tablets are broken, a blasphemous artificial intelligence named GAWD (the Global Automated Wish Distributor), and an advanced civilization of yetis who use snow in their vocabulary way too much.

Do not sit around ignoring "Digman!" or you will regret it. The series premieres on Comedy Central starting on March 23, 2023 at 10:30pm ET/9:30pm CT.