I wish I was watching a lot more TV than I am at the moment. I’m quarantining with my sister’s family and we collectively have six kids, three dogs and a cat, so it’s busy. We’re home-schooling the kids, who are between the ages of three and 16, and I’m still doing voice work, recording cartoons in a bunk bed that we’ve lined with duvet covers and pillows. You’ll get in it and one day it will sound good, and the next day it will sound echoey. I’m like: “What did I forget? Which pillow am I missing?”
At night, when the kids are asleep, luckily we do have a bit of time to watch things. We started out with Tiger King, and then we decided we needed something really light and funny, so we started rewatching Arrested Development (Netflix). It’s just a brilliant show, and great when you’re trying to have a few minutes of not thinking about everything happening in the world. It had been over a decade since I’d watched it, and I’d forgotten just how many laughs there are per 20-minute episode. That cast is so ridiculously talented and every single one of them is perfectly cast. David Cross is amazing, I forgot about [his character Tobias] trying to become part of the Blue Man Group.
My sisters and I went to a French school growing up, and it was something I was excited about for my kids, who are four and 10, to learn, so we’re trying to use this time to practice by watching French cartoons. We’re watching Paw Patrol, which is called Pat Patrouille, and Masha and the Bear. We’ve been able to find a lot of links to animated French songs and stories on YouTube, too. It just goes into the kids’ brains - it’s like, here you go, here’s a language! As well as French school, we would go to German school twice a week, and it’s crazy when you don’t speak it how quickly you lose it, and also how fast it comes back when you’re exposed to the language, so that has been really fun. I’m looking forward to watching [German drama] Babylon Berlin (Sky/Now TV) myself.
We’ve also been watching Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and The Daily Show. It’s been so incredible to see all the late-night shows, like Jimmy Kimmel and Late Night With Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, too, pivot to making their shows from home. It’s setting such an important example of staying home, which is obviously the most important and the main thing that we can do right now. My little sister is a doctor so I’m hearing a lot of frontline stories.
My children always ask: “When can we watch Rick and Morty?!” [Chalke voices the character Beth] and I say “not quite yet”. They have the plushies of the characters, though. My littlest was going round the house saying “Mr Poopybutthole” when she was three, and I was like: “Oh no, she’s gonna go to preschool and they’re gonna be like: ‘Who’s that?’”
Series four of Rick and Morty airs Thursdays at 10pm on E4 and is available on All4
