Comedy, cartoon and... a cult? The scoop on Freeform's 'Praise Petey'

'Schitt's Creek' star Annie Murphy stars as cute, quirky Petey in this adult animated comedy.

ByGina Sirico OTRC logo
Thursday, July 20, 2023
Comedy, cartoon and.. a cult? The scoop on Freeform's 'Praise Petey'
'Praise Petey' is a new animated series where its main character inherits a crazy cult from her dad.

LOS ANGELES -- NOTE: These interviews were conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike authorization.

Do cults and comedy mix? Apparently, they do, and they're what we see in the new Freeform adult animated series, "Praise Petey."

Annie Murphy, best known for her role as Alexis Rose on "Schitt's Creek," voices Petey and told On The Red Carpet her character is a New York City "it" girl who thinks she has everything figured out.

"She in fact does not have anything figured out, and then inherits a cult from her dead father and moves to the south to become a cult leader," Murphy said.

Stephen Root voices Petey's Dad and told On The Red Carpet, "He's a little bit off his rocker. He has since passed, you have to understand. He is only communicating in this show through old video tapes to tell his beautiful, crazy, flighty daughter how to run a cult."

Petey could be described as part Alexis Rose mixed with Cher Horowitz from "Clueless," and Elle Woods from "Legally Blonde," so you know things are going to be outrageous. Murphy says the show is "basically just the trials and tribulations of what comes with that territory."

Her first order of business was to stop the cult's human sacrifices (!!) in New Utopia. And later in the season, Murphy teases an episode about a gas that gets released into the community that sends the residents into a sexual frenzy.

That's right, this is not your child's cartoon comedy.

Murphy said she enjoyed the experience of stretching her acting muscles doing animation.

"I love doing voicework because it can be so outrageous and so over the top, and that's encouraged as opposed to it gets you fired. I love it so much and it is so, so different from film and tv acting so I hope I get to do more of it!"

"Praise Petey" airs Fridays on Freeform.

The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of Freeform and this ABC station.