Kicking off Vulture Festival L.A. to a packed house, Big Mouth star Nick Kroll sat down for a table read of scenes from the profane puberty cartoon, doing voices for each character on the page, all by himself. With show co-creator Andrew Goldberg at his side reading stage directions, Kroll delighted the audience and shredded his vocal cords doing lines for Maurice, the Hormone Monster, Lola, and — surprise crowd favorite — Rick, Coach Steve’s inept but lovable hormone monster. Though the table read scenes primarily centered around a handful of the 25 characters (so far) voiced by Kroll, the actor and comedian delivered impressive impressions of John Mulaney’s Andrew and David Thewlis’ Shame Wizard during a scene that involved his co-stars’ characters. After belting out Coach Steve’s virginity-loss doo-wop ditty, Sex on a Lady, Kroll closed the read with a lightning round of minor character voices, before turning to the audience for a Q&A.
When an audience member inquired as to whether there were jokes deemed too raunchy for a show already teeming with animated depictions of children’s genitals, bodily fluids, and sex pillows, Kroll offered a rare glimpse at the obscenity boundaries of Netflix, a network known for its fairly hands-off relationship with its creatives. “The only note Netflix gave us on season one,†says Kroll, was about a scene involving Rick. “Rick is like ‘suck my sick little dick,’ and we see him pull a thermometer out of his little dick and there’s a spurt of blood that comes out after,†Kroll continues. “Netflix was like ‘how would you feel about not having that?’†A version of the line stayed in, but no thermometer or blood included.