Why Netflix’s ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ Has Taken Three Years to Make

Back in April of 2015 — an eternity in streaming years — Netflix announced that it had given a 13 episode order to an adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs & Ham. Now over four years later,  this much-anticipated cartoon, executive produced by Ellen DeGeneres, is set to debut. At the Television Critics Association’s 2019 summer tour Decider spoke exclusively to the man behind this Seussical adaptation, executive producer Jared Stern, about what went into making one of the most ambitious projects in modern animation.

“I was working on a live action movie, and the producer and director of that movie knew that I had worked at Disney in the past,” Stern said. That director is the one who brought Stern Green Eggs & Ham. “I instantly thought favorite book growing up. Loved it. That’s how I learned to read. But I didn’t know exactly how to do it.”

Stern has worked on everything from his own Netflix original movie Happy Anniversary to The Internship, Wreck-It Ralph, and The Lego Batman Movie. But as Stern explained during a TCA panel for the show, the key to expanding this short and straightforward story was to turn it into an odd couple road trip. The creator fleshed out Adam Devine’s character Sam-I-Am to make him even more of a fun-loving and childlike optimist. Fittingly, Michael Douglas’ character Guy-I-Am is every bit as much of a grump as you would expect. Though the series does chronicle Sam-I-Am trying to make his friend eat green eggs and ham, really it’s more about these two people with very different viewpoints embarking on a journey together and the many ways they clash, along the way.

Despite being such a deceptively simple story, there’s a good reason why Green Eggs & Ham has taken as long as it has. Typically, animation for television is bound to its script. A script is written, voice actors record their lines, and then characters and sequences are drawn. Green Eggs & Ham took a more collaborative approach from beginning to end, a process that’s more commonly seen in feature animation. It wasn’t uncommon for feedback from voice actors or animators to completely reconstruct a previously scripted scene. This process takes far longer than the way animation is typically made for television, but it often yields a more creative and collaborative end product. Stern’s time working for Walt Disney Animation Studios influenced this approach.

“One of my first jobs was I got to work at Disney feature animation, and I ended up staying there for almost five years. I was like 25 when I started. It was like getting paid to go to grad school,” Stern said. The showrunner’s time at Disney allowed him to work alongside Oscar Mitts, who collaborated on Aladdin and The Little Mermaid; Chris Williams, who did Moana and Big Hero Six; and Pete Docter and Andrew Stanton of Pixar.

“It was amazing training for me and I got to watch their process. It’s amazing having made these movies over and over and over again. And they never settle. They always push themselves and they go what could be better?” Stern explained. When asked about what he learned from Disney, he added, “Listen to everyone’s voice, from the security guard, to assistants, to your boss. Everyone is sitting in the seats in the theater and listening. And I just learned to think differently as a writer, to think visually, to care emotionally about your characters. It was wonderful.”

It’s difficult not to consider the push and pull that comes with introducing these old-fashioned animation techniques with something as new as Netflix. When asked if there was any concern about this project his team has spent three years making being binge-watched over a long weekend, Stern laughed.

“Well it’s called Green Eggs & Ham. I’m sure that there are chefs that spend an hour creating a meal that I’ve gobbled down really quickly,” Stern explained. “If someone’s hungry and they’re so into it they want to keep watching and watch the whole thing, then great. And if they want to take their time as they go through it, then awesome. It’s their choice.”

Green Eggs & Ham premieres this fall on Netflix.

Watch Green Eggs & Ham on Netflix this fall