Now streaming on Netflix, Agent Elvis presents the king of rock and roll in a way we’ve never seen before. Elvis, played by Matthew McConaughey, meets some real life characters who were present during this period or played a direct role in the musician’s life. Perhaps most surprisingly, the gun-toting, hard-drinking chimpanzee known as Scatter on the show was, in fact, a real ape, and we spoke to showrunners John Eddie and Mike Arnold about bringing in this strange primate.

Scatter is played by none other than Tom Kenny, who you may recognize most from his work as Nickelodeon’s Spongebob Squarepants. During Elvis’s lifetime, the King had come into contact with Scatter at a children’s show in Memphis, Tennessee, and adopted him after declaring that he had grown to love the monkey. During Elvis’ career, he routinely brought Scatter to movie sets, with the chimp tearing dressing rooms apart, and was known to actually drink alcohol during his lifetime.

Scatter: Elvis’ lifelike chimpanzee

Showrunner John Eddie discussed animating Scatter and how the inclusion of the chimp definitely helped in the writers’ room: “The sandbox we got to play in was everything in Elvis’ life, along with everything else going on in the country at the time. was. We took something like Scatter, who actually took over Elvis from a children’s show in Memphis. We blew up the fact that he was an ex-NASA, cokeout, weapons expert and it’s a much more fun show to watch than just some drunk money in Elvis’ house. It made the show so much more fun to watch and easier to write because we had so many things to choose from.”

Mike Arnold added his thoughts, highlighting that while the series certainly took liberties with Elvis’ life, the creators tried to amplify moments in the King’s history: “We tried to do as much of that as we could. We knew that some fans would would recognize and all these different aspects of his life, we really tried to go for that because there was a part of our audience that was going to get what we were going for.

Are you going to check out Officer Elvis? What other real life celebrity pets should be animated? Feel free to let us know in the comments or call me directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk about all things comics, anime and the world of the king.