Critical Role animated series would have been very different on another streaming service

polygon.com:

Critical Role’s new animated series The Legend of Vox Machina kicks off with two waterfalls of vomit, one vigorous sex scene, and the unmistakable silhouette of a gnome’s testicles. For fans of the long-running Dungeons & Dragons actual play series, none of that should sound out of character, but turns out some TV executives wanted to pump the brakes.

Following its massively successful crowdfunding campaign, the Critical Role troupe took the opportunity to shop the project around before landing on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service. Ultimately, that deal allowed them to extend the project to two full seasons. But many of the executives sitting across the table at other companies wanted changes, the group says. Things might have looked very different had the creators opted for another platform like Netflix, Hulu, or Apple TV.

“We lucked out with Amazon,” said Marisha Ray, who plays half-elf druid Keyleth, in an interview with Polygon. “There were other potential distributors that we were talking about that were more interested in making it maybe a children’s show, or wanting to go a different direction, or [make it into a] more serious political fantasy, a la Game of Thrones.”

“We knew that if we shot for a PG-type rating, or something that was sort of younged down and more accessible to a kid audience, we might draw maybe more viewers,” said Sam Riegel, who plays the gnomish bard Scanlan Shorthalt. “But for us it was about maintaining the original story and the original sort of vibe of the Vox Machina characters. They were bawdy and rowdy and dirty, and we knew that we couldn’t shy away from that. We had to embrace it.”

“Amazon was very open from the beginning,” said Ray, “and was interested on their side of it as