On Sept. 5, 2022, U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., shared concerns over a TV commercial that purportedly aired on the ABC TV network during a college football game between Florida State and Louisiana State University. The Republican politician said that he found the trailer for the new FXX animated comedy series "Little Demon" to be "disturbing," posting that it contained references to hell and Satan and that the main character plays the Antichrist. He also included in the post that the FX and FXX channels are owned by The Walt Disney Company, as is ABC.
While we can't fact-check someone's opinion of a trailer for a comedy cartoon series that's made for adults, airs at a later hour, and stars comedic actor Danny DeVito to voice Satan, we can verify whether the information mentioned in Johnson's Facebook post was true. After looking into the matter, we found that Johnson did not misinform regarding "Little Demon's" plot, cast, and reviews.
'Little Demon' Plot, Cast, and Crew
According to the official FX website, the plot for the animated comedy cartoon does revolve around "a mother and her Antichrist daughter," who "are constantly thwarted by monstrous forces, including Satan."
The same website also includes this longer summary:
13 years after being impregnated by Satan, a reluctant mother, Laura, and her Antichrist daughter, Chrissy, attempt to live an ordinary life in Delaware, but are constantly thwarted by monstrous forces, including Satan, who yearns for custody of his daughter's soul.
FX's animated comedy series "Little Demon" features the voices of Aubrey Plaza as "Laura;" Danny DeVito as "Satan;" and Lucy DeVito as their daughter "Chrissy;" with Eugene Cordero recurring as Chrissy's best friend "Bennigan;" Lennon Parham recurring as Laura's neighbor "Darlene," and Michael Shannon recurring as the "Unshaven Man." Season one also features the voices of guest stars Mel Brooks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Will Jackson Harper, Pamela Adlon, Rhea Perlman, Shangela, Patrick Wilson, Dave Bautista, June Diane Raphael, Toks Olagundoye, Lamorne Morris and Sam Richardson.
"Little Demon" was created and written by Darcy Fowler, Seth Kirschner and Kieran Valla. Aubrey Plaza serves as an executive producer along with Fowler, Kirschner, Valla, Dan Harmon, Jersey Films 2nd Avenue's Jake, Lucy and Danny DeVito, and ShadowMachine (Monica Mitchell, Corey Campodonico and Alex Bulkley). Steve Levy serves as a producer on the project. "Little Demon" is produced by FX Productions.
The Aubrey Plaza Quote
Johnson's reference in his Facebook post to a quote from "the actress who voices Laura," the main character on "Little Demon," was to actor and executive producer Aubrey Plaza. Plaza is perhaps best known for her role as April Ludgate on the comedy TV series, "Parks and Recreation."
According to Johnson, Plaza once said of the new FXX show, "I love that we are normalizing paganism. Laura is a pagan. She's a witch. She's jacked." This was a real quote from Plaza.
After a bit of digging around, we found a YouTube video of the interview. It was uploaded to the CBR Presents YouTube channel in July 2022. The moderator's question begins at the 1:27 mark. We recommend watching the entire interview for context regarding the tone in which all of the remarks were delivered about the animated comedy series that's made for adults:
Lastly, the two paragraphs in Johnson's post about a review for "Little Demon" truly did come from a real review by Slant Magazine.
As of September 2022, new episodes of "Little Demon" were airing on FXX at 10 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time and were also available to stream on Hulu, both of which are owned by Disney. (Disney owns a majority of Hulu.)
Additionally, the unofficial website Disney Plus Informer reported that the show was purportedly streaming on Disney Plus in Australia and New Zealand. It's unclear if it will ever be made available on Disney Plus for American audiences, as it's already on Hulu in the states. Additionally, to be clear, "Little Demon" does not air on the Disney Channel in the U.S.
In a series of tweets sent out on Sept. 6, Johnson mentioned his popular Facebook post and said, "Free speech is an important principle, and in this country, everyone can obviously make their own decisions about what media they and their families consume. But a corollary is that Christians have the freedom to fulfill our obligation to 'speak the truth in love' (Eph. 4:15) even — and sometimes most importantly — when it may not be popular."