Harley Quinn is having her big moment in the spotlight. Since her debut as Joker's sidekick on Batman: The Animated Series, Quinn has steadily built up her fan base and is now one of DC's most popular characters. Her big screen adventures will continue over the next few years as Margot Robbie will reprise her role in a number of movies, including Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), and James Gunn's The Suicide Squad.
But before those movies, Quinn will first headline her own solo comedy cartoon, titled Harley Quinn, which debuts Nov. 29 on the DC Universe. Although it seems like just the right time for Quinn to get her own show, the process of bringing the cartoon to life actually took years.
CBR recently sat down with the show's co-creators, Patrick Schumaker and Justin Halpern, and the two of them explained the original pitch for the show happened over three years ago. This would put the idea right around the time when the first Suicide Squad movie was released. But the path to get the show on air wasn't an easy one.
Both Schumaker and Halpern had other commitments, mainly working on NBC's short-lived DC comedy Powerless. When the show was canceled after one season, the two picked back up their work on their Harley Quinn show, with the writer's room officially being started in November of 2017.
Even then, two years from a writer's room to a premiere is a long time, but Schumacker and Halpern cite the lengthy animation process as the main reason the show has taken so long to air.
"Animation is just a very lengthy process," Schumacker said. "We do all of our actual production overseas in Korea, so every episode takes, I think, about 18 weeks to get back from a locked animatic the finished color animation."
DC Universe's Harley Quinn stars Kaley Cuoco, Lake Bell, Diedrich Bader, Alan Tudyk, Rahul Kohli, Christopher Meloni, Tony Hale, Ron Funches, Wanda Sykes, Natalie Morales, Jim Rash, Giancarlo Esposito, Jason Alexander and J.B. Smoove. The series premieres Nov. 29.