‘Big Mouth’ Creators on Megan Thee Stallion’s ‘Pussy’ Anthem and More

This post contains spoilers from the seventh season of Big Mouth. 

Season Seven of Netflix’s Big Mouth begins where the penultimate season ends: the cast of pubescent middle schoolers arrive at high school exploring the PDA-filled halls, meeting the gospel-singing B-High Quee-Choi, and participating in a classic food fight. Although it took seven seasons for the hyper-horny students to get to secondary school, it remains one of the most “disgusting laugh machines in all of television,” our own Alan Sepinwall wrote.

By the release of its eighth season in 2024, the series will become Netflix’s longest-running animated series. It’s won a pair of Emmys and, according to co-creators Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin, and Andrew Goldberg, prides itself on waxing wise about pubescent trauma. The comedy’s seventh go-around also boasts a number of exciting additions, including musician Megan Thee Stallion’s hormone monster, a pubic hair ditty courtesy of Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o. Sadly, a dick-exorcism scene didn’t make the cut. 

The first few days of high school are admittedly terrifying. Goldberg has been friends with Big Mouth co-creator and actor Nick Kroll since first grade, and the two attended sleep-away camp together. (Kroll declined to participate in this interview out of solidarity with the nearly 100-day actors’ strike.) Goldberg remembers the trepidation he felt when he was sent off to high school in the New York suburbs, while Kroll was bussed to a preppy private school.

“Still to this day, my recurring dreams are being lost in that giant building,” Goldberg tells Rolling Stone. 

A similar split occurs in Season Seven when self-gratifying addict Andrew, voiced by comedian John Mulaney, and late bloomer Nick, voiced by Kroll, find themselves attending different high schools. Beyond the genital injuries, guilt-ridden hookups, and disastrous shroom trips, the sexually-agitated preteens undergo radical changes, such as graduation and forming new friendships, which allow the characters to reinvent themselves. 

Poking fun at the awkward and uncomfortable moments within puberty helped the series connect with viewers. The shameful, sad stories of our childhood become laughable as we age, according to Flackett. When talking to Megan Thee Stallion about a guest role on the show, it helped that she was already a fan. 

“Would you like to be a high school student in high school? And she was like, ‘I think I’m more of a hormone monstress,’” Flackett recalls. 

They leaned into the “WAP” rapper’s persona, with a booty-shaking performance of “Pussy Don’t Lie” with vulva-shaped backup dancers and a serious reading of the Dicklaration of Pussypendence following a regretful hookup. She’s joined in the raunchy fun by Billy Porter’s character Ocean, who leads the school’s choir into song about the dreadful years ahead. And in an episode tackling puberty mishaps across the globe, Lupita Nyong’o plays a Kenyan shame wizard and Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda composed a song about a Puerto Rican boy’s body hair. Flackett fondly remembers listening to Miranda and the Puerto Rican musical theater crew performing “Esperando Pelitos” around a piano in New York as a harmonic choir of pubes.  

“When we first thought of it, we thought of it more like a fun song, but he added in all that yearning for pubes,” Flackett says.

It was extra important for the creators to get its fourth episode, “The International Show,” right. They used actors who dubbed the series to voice the worldwide characters and spoke with consultants from each territory to ensure they were telling the appropriate story.

“Knowing that we have such an international audience, we wanted to celebrate the universality of puberty,” Levin explains. 

But all their ideas didn’t leave the writers’ room. The creators workshopped, for the second time, a demon semen episode where one character would have to banish a demon from his penis — a dick-orcism, if you will. Learning that the concept wouldn’t work flabbergasted the writers. 

“Honestly, when you say it, I feel like it should work,” Flackett jokes. “Maybe we’ll put it in the finale.”

In Season Three, the show received criticism due to its explanation of bisexuality and pansexuality surrounding its pansexual character, Ali. Goldberg tweeted an apology, noting the episode “missed the mark” and that they “look forward to delving into all of this in future seasons.” And Jenny Slate, who previously played biracial teen Misty, left the adult comedy in 2020, stating in an Instagram post, “Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people.” Misty is now voiced by the ubiquitous Ayo Edebiri.  

Given its previous controversies, Flackett notes that the series has become more careful and has more representation on staff. She adds that the animated show aims to share valuable lessons on human development, and that your embarrassing memories from your adolescence do not exist in a monolith: “At the end of the day, while it might be a really, really raunchy show – which it is – it has a lot of heart.” 

From Rolling Stone US.