BEEBO SAVES CHRISTMAS: Ben Diskin on Bringing His LEGENDS OF TOMORROW Fan Favorite to Life in a New Special

Beebo, the unexpected cult icon from LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, is at the center of a new CW holiday special, BEEBO SAVES CHRISTMAS as the titular character tries to save the holiday season.

In the animated special, Sprinkles (Chris Kattan), an elf, decides Christmas would be more efficient sans Santa (Ernie Hudson). However, Beebo (Ben Diskin) and his buddies disagree, and travel to the North Pole to try and save the day

“I hope that people watch it, think it’s cute, and enjoy it, because it was really fun to work on,” Diskin, who is reprising his role of Beebo from LEGENDS, says. “All the people who put the special together really care.”

Here, Diskin talks about Beebo getting his very own special…

How did they approach you about the special?
Oh, I found out about this, at this point, probably close to a year ago, when we actually were going to record it. I kind of thought it was a joke. Like, oh, maybe it’s some sort of thing that they’re gonna put on YouTube, and it’ll be two minutes; it’s just gonna be like Beebo wishing people a Merry Christmas. And it was like, “No, by the way, there are songs for this.. It’s gonna be like about an hour or so.” And I’m like, “What? How did you take a character that says, ‘I la-la-love you’ and turn it into a show?” Turns out it’s real and we’re making it! [Laughs.]

Beebo is so beloved by LEGENDS fans, but it’s clearly not your real voice. How frequently do you get approached about it?
It’s mostly online, for sure. It’s one of those things where if I don’t tell people that I play that character, they don’t know who I am, and they don’t really associate me with it. It’s a sort of a thing that exists in a separate room for me, so to speak. It’s like, oh, yeah, that’s the thing that I that I do, and that nobody associates me with—until you tell people that and then it’s shocking how many people actually know what you’re talking about. I told my parents, “I’m doing a Beebo Christmas special.” And they’re like, “What’s that?” Because they don’t watch the ARROWverse shows. But I’ll mention it to, like, the security guard at my building, “Have you heard of like this? This blue thing from the ARROWverse shows?” “You mean Beebo?!” “You know who Beebo is?” It’s a strange experience of the total disconnect, unless I bring it up, and then people seem to know what it is. People love this character.

Beebo really has taken on this whole secondary life outside of the series. What has been your favorite extension of the character, outside of the show and this special?
I would say probably just fan art, in general. The fact that it exists! And the fact that people also make toys based on him for Etsy. It’s always the fans that are the most interesting aspect of all of these projects, because so many of them are extremely talented artists. And they have their own unique interpretation. Like, “Here’s Beebo as a samurai, and I’m just going to draw that because I can, because I’m extremely talented.” And it’s just like, wow, cool! I never knew I needed samurai Bebo, but there he is.

What can you tease about the special itself?
I feel like I can safely say that Beebo and his friends attempt to save Christmas. I feel like that’s not going to be a spoiler! [Laughs.] There are going to be some references that people who are fans of LEGENDS OF TOMORROW and various ARROWverse shows are going to latch on to, and go, “I know what that’s a reference to” that your ordinary person or kids watching this at home won’t. I feel like the best part of the special, without giving anything away, is that it’s ultimately just a simple, sweet story, that you don’t really need to have seen any of these shows to understand. It’s just a Christmas special and it’s just charming and cute.

How did your approach for voicing Beebo in a live-action story versus Beebo in an animated series change? Or is Beebo Beebo no matter where you play him?
Beebo is pretty much Beebo no matter what. The only difference is that he has to actually emote throughout this, whereas before it’s very, very soft, gentle dialogue the whole time. You can’t make an entire special with a character who talks like [Beebo normally does]. A lot of it was just pick up the pace, keep him lively, and energetic. But just keep the voice, so you make sure that he just feels positive, but not in a “trying to put a small child to sleep at night” kind of vibe to him. But that was really just the challenge. It’s just Beebo, but with some energy. Wake him up.

You also had to sing as Beebo in this special…
Beebo’s other modes of existence are much easier, because you don’t have to hit notes, you just have to hit emotions. I’m good at hitting emotions. Hitting notes, I’m like, “Oh, boy.” In my regular speaking voice, just me, I don’t consider myself a good singer, at all. So then when you have to do in a character voice, it’s like, “Well, I’m not used to hitting any notes with this thing. Okay, let’s figure that out.” I fortunately was able to receive the songs ahead of time. I was practicing them over and over and over. I had a guide track that I could sing along with. So at least they didn’t surprise me with it. If they’d done that, I would have been shaking from nerves the entire time. I hope it turned out okay; I’ve been told that it sounds cute.

It does! You also have incredible co-stars, including original LEGENDS star Victor Garber as the narrator. Every animated project is different, but did you get to record together?
Because of the wide, wide world of COVID, we recorded all of this stuff from home. I have a voiceover booth in my bedroom that I recorded the entire special from, and I didn’t even know [at the time] who my co-stars were. I didn’t even know who was going to be playing the characters. So I didn’t get to hear their performances, and I was 100% reliant on our director and post-director to make sure that whatever we recorded was going to work with whatever they were going to be recording. There was a lot of a lot of coordination involved. Whereas normally we would just be in a big sound booth together recording and playing off of one another. We’d be hearing exactly what it’s gonna sound like. This was, “I’m just gonna trust you guys that you know what you’re doing, and you’ll know what you like when you hear it.” Of course, my wife and I both got the song stuck in our heads, because she could hear me from outside the booth singing about how much Beebo loves the holiday. [Laughs.] It was a it was a unique experience, to say the least.

Now that you got to explore Beebo like this, will it change how you approach the character going forward?
I feel like it would really depend on what the writers of LEGENDS would want to do with him. Because, so far, in that world it is just a toy. Unless this special is actually canon in that universe, then I could see them being like, “Okay, well, hey, maybe he has some new catchphrases.” Or we’re going to, I don’t know, bring the toy to life, and then he actually has real dialogue. And if that happens, well then yes, definitely, the way we played it into special is going to impact how we use it in the show. But if it’s just a toy still, they could probably just recycle some of the stuff I’ve already said and just put it back in there. So it really depends on what they do with the character, if they even keep bringing him back.

BEEBO SAVES CHRISTMAS, Wednesday, December 1, 8/7c, The CW

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