Behind the Scenes

The genesis of this project marked a distinct shift in the Dollars & Donuts creative process, stepping away from the insular reliance on Hank Della’s typewriter to embrace outside collaboration. Following the success of the 2017 Showcase, writer Mike Bedard—who had attended the premiere and been charmed by the studio’s "Adult Swim" sensibility—reached out to Daryl with a folder of short scripts.

In February 2018, Daryl convened the core group for a table read. The team was immediately electrified by a script titled Dawn of the Planet of the Monkeys. It was weird, punchy, and offered the exact kind of genre-bending challenge Daryl was craving. While the decision to purchase the script for a modest $40 was a professional milestone, it came with a quiet emotional cost; stepping outside the family for material reportedly stung Hank Della, who had served as the studio’s primary scribe for years. Nevertheless, the momentum was undeniable. Mike Bedard offered to let them change the title to something shorter, but in true Dollars & Donuts fashion, Daryl leaned into the absurdity, elongating it to the tongue-twisting Dawn of the Rise of the Battle for the Conquest of the Planet of the Monkeys.

Daryl approached the production with a specific visual thesis: he wanted to film a sketch comedy script as if it were an Academy Award-winning war drama. To achieve this "high gloss" look, the production secured a professional tugboat and warehouse set in the East Bay, a massive leap in production value from the garage-based shoots of the past.

The casting process illustrated the widening orbit of the studio’s talent pool. While Gino Vigil and Sasha Boggs had already established the Los Angeles pipeline, Sasha brought in her friend and fellow LA actor Tara Erickson for the role of Eliza. It was a casting coup that legitimized the production, placing professional talent alongside the "homegrown" crew. However, the casting of Mitchell Martin as Peter became another flashpoint of friction. Michael Martin staunchly opposed casting his own brother, continuing a strange pattern of gatekeeping within his own family, though Daryl eventually forced the decision through.

Despite the excitement, pre-production was a battlefield of divergent imaginations. Daryl, operating on intuition, wanted a color-coded costume scheme reminiscent of Scooby-Doo to pop against the industrial gloom. Michael dismissed the idea as "dumb," lacking the ability to visualize the stylized contrast Daryl intended. This friction extended to the planning phase; Daryl preferred working from a shot list, trusting the flow of the set, while Michael, needing literal visual confirmation, went behind Daryl’s back to hire a storyboard artist. It was a clash of methodologies—the intuitive auteur versus the literal-minded manager—that slowed the process but ultimately couldn't derail it.

One area of agreement was the creature effects. Becker Von Felsburg tapped his friend Aaron Van Lieu to handle the special effects makeup, transforming Becker into the fez-wearing monkey, Bobo. When Daryl emailed Mike Bedard a photo of the makeup test, the writer’s reaction—"Oh my god... looks just like the makeup from the original Planet of the Apes"—confirmed they were capturing the perfect blend of homage and parody.

The shoot itself was a rare luxury: two full nights and days in the East Bay. For a crew used to rushing through single-day shoots, this felt like a big-budget affair. The resulting footage was undeniably beautiful, rich with color and cinematic depth. However, Daryl privately harbored some disappointment. He had envisioned an animated segment to depict the overwhelming monkey army outside the bunker, a sequence that would have bridged the gap between the limited budget and the script’s epic scale. Time and money ran out, leaving the threat unseen.

The "Old Ship" Coup The true historical significance of Monkeys occurred after the cameras stopped rolling. Following two grueling but successful days of shooting, the cast and crew drove back to San Francisco to celebrate at the Old Ship Saloon, joined by co-founder Ray Revello.

Amidst the clinking glasses and relief of the wrap party, Michael Martin pulled Daryl aside. He confessed that Daryl’s ambitious plan for more shorts that year was too much for him; he didn't want to produce anything else for the remainder of 2018. It was a statement intended to pump the brakes, a tactic that had worked in the past.

This time, Daryl didn't stop. He took Michael’s resignation from the slate not as a defeat, but as permission. He walked away from Michael, crossed the bar, and approached Becker Von Felsburg. On the spot, Daryl christened Becker the new Lead Producer for the rest of the year. The stalling tactic had backfired; instead of slowing down, Daryl accelerated. He decided that with "crazy effort," they could film three more horror shorts before Halloween, and the anthology Welcome to the Strange was born.