Everyone in New York really does secretly want to be in show business — even the roaches.
They’re in luck. Now Gotham’s rats, pigeons, bedbugs and other assorted creatures have their own series. HBO’s “Animals” debuts Friday night at 11:30.
The animated comedy series presents oddball, slice-of-life looks at anthropomorphized creatures, and it was created by two former New York ad men, Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano.
The two were working at Soho’s Rooster agency a few years ago when they noticed two pigeons outside the window and started inventing dialogue for the birds.
“We became interested in these animals that live in the most man-made city on Earth; how are they existing?” Luciano tells The Post.
“It’s this weird cosmic joke that animals are forced to live on concrete and in these sewers,” Matarese says. “That was really funny to us.”
And to others, as well.
The duo made a few crude shorts on a computer tablet and entered the New York Television Festival. One episode involved pigeons fretting over whether rain would cancel a party. Another was about a police horse showing off his gun to a carriage horse. From there, calls from agents and managers followed.
Ultimately, they also got contacted by actor-director Mark Duplass (of 2010’s “Cyrus”). He offered to help them produce a full season of episodes and recruit voice talent. Aziz Ansari, Wanda Sykes, Nick Kroll and other comic actors appear in the first season.
“I hate cartoon voices. It’s grating, it’s hard to be funny,” Matarese says. “We really liked projecting our sort of human conversations onto animals. So much of the show stems from Mike and me being stuck in traffic and f–king around.”
The show’s creators have since left New York to live in Los Angeles, and the series has already been picked up for a second season, giving the creators the opportunity to dramatize the lives of more of New York’s vilest, dirtiest creatures.
May we suggest Robert Durst?