Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne Go to Sexy Space in Animated Comedy About Self-Doubt & Hyper-Horniness

Sometimes mixing Lexapro with weepy nighttime soaps can be a win. Just ask Cirocco Dunlap, a television writer for shows like Russian Doll and the animated Big Hero 6 spin-off, Baymax!. Faced with trying to find her next gig in television she just decided to write and pitch her own series. 

“I was suddenly like, ‘It’s time!’” Dunlap told Jezebel. “It was very, like full go mode. For months, this is all I was focused on.”

Fusing together her love for heady sci-fi, animation, and female-centric series like Grey’s Anatomy, she Frankensteined it all together into one ambitious show. Dunlap then got a meeting with Danielle Renfrew Behrens at Animal Pictures (the one-time joint production shingle of Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne), and it was an eclectic match made in heaven. 

In 2019, Rudolph and Lyonne joined Dunlap to pitch Prime Video The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy, a future-set space comedy about two alien surgeons, Dr. Sleech (Stephanie Hsu) and Dr. Klak (Keke Palmer), who have been besties since training and now practice questionable medicine in a weirdo outpost in deep space. 

“It was the coolest pitch in the entire world because I was sitting between Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne,” Dunlap said with plenty of residual awe. It also didn’t hurt that her lady heroes attached themselves as series producers, and the voice talent for the robot Dr. Vlam (Rudolph) and acerbic Nurse Tup (Lyonne). Then voila! It’s now an original Prime Video animated series with a two-season order premiering February 23 on the streamer. 

Unlike anything other adult animated shows out there, Dunlap said Second Best Hospital was born out of a few core ideas. “The whole season is about anxiety,” she said of her main characters who wrestle with self-doubt and hyper-horniness. “And then the fun part of it was I just kept thinking about how fun it would be, using the example of Groundhog Day, to be stuck in a time loop. Or, if an alien being is impregnated, where would they get treated? And what if they were not the main character? That was something that felt cool to me and very special, and also a place where the kind of ideas that I have could live because I love sci-fi.”

As the conduits of the rare, female-created, adult animation show, Dunlap, Rudolph, and Lyonne spoke to Jezebel about birthing the oddity that is The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy into existence. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

JEZEBEL: Maya, what about Cirocco’s premise got you excited to executive produce it?

Maya Rudolph: Cirocco created such a fully realized world. Even in the room when we were recording, she has such a vision of every single character, and there’s so much love and care in every single character. We’re even talking about some of the smaller characters. I think I played a bus or a flying ambulance at one point. But she cares so much about this world that she created. And she’s so invested in this place. 

We were talking earlier about this idea of it being a utopia, which I think makes so much sense. This utopian world that she created, it was so exciting to watch that come to life. Before we even knew we were going to be voices in it, we were just so happy to be able to help shepherd that vision out into the world. 

This show is so unique and female-centered. Is that what you’re looking for when you decide to shepherd something under your producing shingle?

Natasha Lyonne: Yeah, yeah. I always think of it like the Beatles, you know. It’s like four guys with their hairdos. Every time now, when I see four guys with little hairdos, [I think] you’re not going to be the Beatles. We already had the Beatles, and The Monkeys, and The Rolling Stones, and even The Strokes. Like, we’re good. Your band’s probably not going to be better than that. So, maybe leave a little space to find out what other kind of music we can hear, perchance? And that’s an exciting twist.

Cirocco, did you write parts for Maya and Natasha from the start?

Cirocco Dunlap: I did not know from the get-go. It just kind of happened that the characters were developed independently. We created this world and then it sort of naturally evolved to who they would fit voice-wise and personality-wise. But I think they’re both incredible.

Rudolph: Well, I have to admit, I do give….robot.

Lyonne: Yeah, pretty non-stop.

Rudolph: Are you a lizard? 

Lyonne: I am a lizard. Usually, Maya plays lizards and I play robots. And so here was finally an opportunity for us to stretch and produce and play a sort of a flip flop. So, it’s really rare.