Chucky Creator Don Mancini Details ‘One of the Best Kills of the Franchise’ and Casting of SNL’s Kenan Thompson
One SNL cast member down, one to go.
On Wednesday’s episode of Chucky, Kenan Thompson had a rather unfortunate run-in with the killer doll, when his cab-driving character picked up the doll and Caroline on the streets of New York City. After overhearing the “interactive AI robot doll” talk about murder (Chucky has his hit list hilariously saved as a note in his phone), the freaked out cabbie tried to drop them off at a random street corner. But when he pulled over, Chucky had something else in mind. The doll dropped the driver’s seat back and shoved an entire umbrella into his mouth and down his throat.
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But that’s not all. Chucky hit the button to open the umbrella up, which caused the unsuspecting New Yorker’s throat to explode in a shower of goopy red. (All of this mess was set to the tune of The Cowsills’ “The Rain, The Park and Other Things.” How’s that for twisted?)
When prompted, creator Don Mancini calls Thompson’s death-by-umbrella his favorite kill of the season. “I have to give credit to my fellow writer in the writers’ room,” he tells TVLine. “Amanda Blanchard came up with that and it’s just so brilliant. I think it’s one of the best kills in the franchise.”
Mancini and Thompson met through actress Barbara Woods (who played Lexy’s now-deceased mom Michelle, as well as being the real-life mother of actress Alyvia Alyn Lind). Woods is friends with Thompson’s business partner, so when the cast was in New York promoting Season 2 at Comic Con last year, Thompson threw them all a party.
“I’m a longtime fan of his and SNL, in general. I’ve been a consistent viewer of that show, every episode, since it started,” says Mancini. “Turns out he’s a big Chucky fan. He invited me to SNL that weekend we were there, and I said yes, because I also wanted to meet Sarah Sherman who played Chucky in this hilarious skit with Jake Gyllenhaal two seasons ago.
“When I was hanging out with them at one of the legendary SNL after parties, I just asked, ‘Would you guys be into coming on the show?’ They both said, ‘F–k, yes. Sign us up.’ I’m so happy that it worked out because it was just such an honor to work with both of them. Both of their characters were a lot of fun for us to create and tailor to their distinct personalities.”
Elsewhere in the episode (which is mostly set in the past), Chucky started to show signs of aging, which seems to have weakened his connection to the voodoo spirit Damballa. So he heads to the hospital to get checked out, but in pure Chucky fashion, it’s not your typical medical institution. Rather, it specializes in the supernatural and has quite the roster of patients. The doctor confirms that last season’s exorcism “infected” him with Christian magic, and that Charles Lee Ray is, in fact, dying. Damballa has abandoned him, and without that dark magic, Chucky is SOL.
Rest assured, if you have an endless list of questions about this morbid “hospital,” that’s not the last we’re going to see of it. “You’ll see more. Stay tuned,” Mancini teases. “It was our intention to be very Tim Burton/Beetlejuice with that.”
The doc does give him one option, but it’ll “take an evil of a magnitude even you can’t comprehend.” But Chucky’s obviously intrigued and always up for misbehaving. So when the Amityville house — yes, that Amityville house — isn’t horrifying enough for Chucky to conduct the hellish ritual in, he heads to the next most evil location he can think of.
And that’s how Chucky winds up inside the White House.
What was your favorite part of Episode 3? Let us know by dropping a comment.
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