The animated series for "Tig Notaro: Drawn" on HBO Max

Television cabarets have a history that goes back at least 70 years, and during that time standup specials evolved to become many things: hilarious, memorable, provocative, surreal. But there is one thing they have never been, and Tig Notaro is about to change it.

Tig Notaro: Drawn debuts July 24 on HBO and HBO Max as the first fully animated standup special, but this barely begins to describe the ways in which Notaro's special opens the door to a combination of art forms - cabaret and animation - that don't have ever joined in this way. The television event takes full advantage of the medium, with the Six Point Harness studio bringing each of Notaro's stories to life in a unique style, drawing on a myriad of inspirations, influences and media.

"As soon as we met and started talking about the concept, everyone's mind went to the idea that each piece would look completely different from the other," said Greg Franklin, director of Tig Notaro: Drawn and creative director of Six Point Harness. Franklin oversaw a team of over 150 artists, animators and technicians who contributed to the special.

“Many of us grew up reading MAD Magazine, and in each issue you never knew what the next page would look like, there were so many different things crammed in and that may have been the only influence that helped us understand the overall effect we were looking for, ”Franklin said.

Binding him together was Notaro herself, her uniquely sardonic worldview and playful attitude towards her audience. “Every artist on this project came up with brilliant visual lines, but we were working on Tig's playground, so it was imperative that every choice we made was guided by his tone and material,” added Franklin. "Visually, this was our biggest challenge: to represent each story with a completely different aspect, but to make it seem like it's all in one piece: Tig's brain."

The animators started with an extraordinary amount of material. Rather than a single pre-recorded comedy show, Notaro gave Six Point Harness access to more than 48 hours of audio material, much of which had no visual counterpart. The audio was assembled from dozens of different shows, and Notaro worked with the animation team to narrow it down to one hour on the special.

Sometimes the animation style came directly from the material itself. One sequence, in which Notaro recalls his disastrous experience with the extraction of wisdom teeth, evoked the illustration styles of the jet-set 60s magazines. "Tig finds himself in a world surrounded by these beautiful sophisticated people who are perhaps not so cute on the inside, and a stylized, retro realism was, for us, an exhilarating way to animate those characters and tell that story."

In another sequence Notaro recalls a road trip with a friend that included a stop at the home of a kind old lady. “It started out as a modern version of Looney Tunes and the exaggerated and slapstick cartoon styles of the 40s and 50s, and eventually evolved into a rather original and modern look all of its own. "

Other segments allowed Franklin and his team to satirize the aspect of CG animation and "visually consider what it might look like if, for example, Coco bled ”. The sequences are interspersed with shots of an animated Notary on stage interacting with her audience, allowing the animators to represent not only the comedian but the kaleidoscope of people in the crowd.

Hand-drawn animation, computer animation and even throwback clay - painstakingly crafted with real clay by Six Point Harness creative director Musa Brooker - come together to create an hour of comedy and animation that is truly unlike any special standup in the history of television.

“It was a pure collaboration with Tig,” said Franklin. "This is Tig's world and she gave us the chance to play it."

Tig Notaro: Drawn premiered on HBO and HBO Max on July 24 at 22pm ET / PT.