Barney, But Make It Horror: How Buddy Brought a Niche Filmmaker Into the Mainstream

Delaney Quinn in Buddy —Courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Saban Films Capser Kelly hadn't heard the internet term "breaking containment" before I bring it up in our interview, but he instantly gets the idea.

It's when something that's intended for a more obscure, niche audience unexpectedly goes mainstream.

That's certainly what happened with Kelly's most well-known work.

Nearly 12 years ago, a deranged, 11-minute parody of old sitcom intros called Too Many Cooks aired on Adult Swim at 4:00 a.m.

When somebody uploaded it to YouTube afterwards, it went insanely viral—to the point where the normies at CNN parodied it .

Now, Kelly's breaking into the mainstream, so to speak.

Although his brand of weird, horror-tinged comedy has been a mainstay on Adult Swim for decades, his first theatrical film, Buddy , is hitting theaters following a successful premiere at SXSW earlier this year.

The movie, which is about children who are unknowingly trapped inside the world of a forgotten Barney -like television show starring a secretly sinister orange unicorn, is arguably one of the most normal things Kelly has made—which is saying something.

"I asked my manager.

I'm like, 'Is this too normal?'" Kelly recalls.

"And he goes, 'No, but it might be normal enough that someone will give you money to make it." At no point in making Buddy was Kelly deliberately trying to tone the twisted-ness down.

"I really just try to do things that I like that interest me," he explains, noting that it's been pointed out that he seems to be very interested in being trapped.

This feels appropriate, given our conversation about breaking containment.

"If you like Too Many Cooks , this is me exploring some of those ideas of weaponized nostalgia and being trapped in a TV show, on a bigger scale." Delaney Quinn (who was heard but only briefly seen as Rose Byrne’s daughter in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You ) stars in Buddy as a young girl who starts to realize that something is wrong in the titular unicorn's seemingly happy world once another child goes missing.