by Google
When and how did the idea for Dan Drev come about?
It started when I was 13 years old, in 2007 in high school. The initial idea came about when my classmates were talking about wanting to dub Eragon, a fantasy film. At that time, dubbed parodies were popular, vulgar parodies of Smurfs, and everything was in Eastern style. But we knew them word for word. So it occurred to me that if my classmates were going to dub Eragon, we could also dub something with our friends.
That same day I came home, downloaded some first software, I had a small headset at home, about 100 crowns, and I started dubbing on some disastrous dubbing program. I downloaded Chamber of Secrets and tried the first thing I could think of. There was the first scene with the owl crashing into the cage, and instead of taking a porcelain vase and imitating the sound, I did "Tuf tuf".
And that's how it started. I dubbed some of that nonsense and it fascinated me terribly, I found it funny. Suddenly Harry was saying whatever came to mind. The next day I explained it in a very fascinating way to my two classmates, Jakub and Stanislav, and they were also thrilled. After school we went to my place and started dubbing the first episode of Dan Drev.
What or who inspired you?
A lot of the characters were our classmates and our teachers. Everything was internal until about episode seven, because we were doing it for our classmates, whom we wanted to entertain. Every time we watched a new Dan Drev movie in computer science class, there was a group of classmates around me and they were laughing so hard because Harry Potter was talking about a classmate or teacher of ours. It was one of those moments that we enjoyed because 30 people were suddenly having fun with something that had just crossed our minds. But around episode seven, things changed because it was getting more views. What was the most views for you? Well, it wasn't 50, it was 200, and sometimes someone from the next class commented on it, sometimes someone we didn't even know existed, a stranger. Then we said to ourselves, let's do it for the whole of Slovakia. 
What happened after the seventh part, how did you work on it then?
Since the seventh part, we have also started writing scripts. Until then, we would meet and put the first thing we thought of there, but then we said to ourselves that if it was to be successful in the whole of Slovakia, we couldn't just focus on our class and jokes that only our class would understand.
We would always come to my place after school, my mom would make us some sandwiches, give us Fanta, and we would be locked up for five to six hours. To this day, when we occasionally meet these guys, we remember how we were hunched over in the dark with that microphone from that headset and it was fun.
Do you know what the most popular line from this parody of yours is?
I know that from Chamber of Secrets the most popular line is probably "Sorry I'm late, I was measuring my dick.", then "Here comes the food cart, put your dicks in.". Haha, that's so brutal, because that Peder starts grabbing his pants there.
How did you dub Peder? Didn't you want to be the main character, Harry?
I really liked Peder. Peder was just so expressive, vulgar, a stupid idiot who never understood anything and was aggressive. I know that Peder always had something that made me laugh.
Did you expect it to be such a success?
I was aware that we could create something that would really influence generations in Slovakia. I was aware of this because I already had experience with the first film and I knew what to do better.
Why, or on what basis, did you choose Meky Žbirka for your parody
We chose Meky Žbirka for one reason only, and that was because I could kind of imitate his voice. There was no other reason. We said that when Voldemort appears, someone has to dub him, and it was Meky. I realize that it's not 100%, but at least there's a little bit of something there. 
We were aware that we had to find some aspects of his personality that we could make fun of. Well, that was his English, which he uses everywhere, and then it was his appearance. It's so superficial, but it was also his appearance.
Why and who was Šlota?
Well, we chose Šlota because Ján Slota was also in the government at the time, but we couldn't say that because there might be some legal problems. Well, because we wanted to put a lot of racist humor in there, we needed a character who would justify it a little bit, that we put that racist humor in there.
The idea came to me that actually those Bulgarians, Chvostnatý Gábor and co., that they would be Hungarians. Those Bulgarians had a lot of discords there for some reason and then it all just clicked for me, that Slota and the Hungarians. 
And how did the name Peder come about?
We had a chemistry teacher named Ján. He was a mountainous old guy with huge lumberjack hands, terribly hairy and he kept expressing himself like “Ejha”, “Boha” and “Pieder”. He actually told me that "Pieder" during chemistry classes, neither Peter nor Peťo but Pieder and that's how Peder was created. We wanted to put him there as a kind of mountain guy who would say "Ejha" and "Boha", those Central Slovak-Orava words, but for some reason it suited us better to put him as a homosexual.
And who is Dano Drevo or how did this nickname come about?
Our classmate Daniel was very unathletic, let's call it that, and I remember that during one gym class we were playing football and he somehow kicked the ball away. He was actually the goalkeeper, he kicked the ball and in an incredibly comic style it was reflected from everywhere, like in some parody and straight between his legs into the goal. He scored his own goal in such a style and we couldn't breathe with laughter. At that moment, it was said, Dano, you're such wood and from then on, Dano was Wood. Since he was popular in this sense, that he was wood, we said that he had to be the main character.
How did you get to Meliško?
Meliško is a total legend and we were his big fans. We could quote all his recordings, word for word, so we were wondering if we had a character there that hadn't been dubbed by anyone and there was that dragon. At that time, Meliško was such that he was already going to various events and his star was growing more and we found out that he had a manager, so we wrote to him and he said okay, we'll do it for...how much did we give him then? Maybe some €40 and a bottle of pine brandy, of which the manager took €25, so Laco did it for €15 and a bottle of pine brandy.
And how did you cover the distance? Did you go to him, or did he go to you?
We dubbed it in Prievidza. We went by bus to Prievidza and we had instructions that Mr. Ladislav would be at his favorite pub, Papuča or Septima. We got there with Jano Brunovský, the other dubber, and Meliško was already there, pretty drunk. He was sitting there alone, he had a pint of borovička in front of him and we said, "Hello, Mr. Ladislav, we're here, I don't know if your manager told you that we're going to dub." He didn't know what was going on at all, so we had to explain it to him for 20 minutes, it wasn't exactly ideal for a drunk person. Of course, he was convinced by the fact that we chose the pint of borovička. So we went by taxi to his manager and the interesting thing was that for the first 10 minutes we thought that he couldn't read, because we gave him a microphone and text and he couldn't. But as he started to drink the pint of borovička more, his tongue loosened.
And how was it to work with him in such a state?
It was interesting. He used to swear at us that we belonged to Pezinok and that we were all f*cked up. About three-quarters of the way through the dubbing process, he got mad that he didn't care that he needed cigarettes. So on Sunday in Prievidza we had to look for cigarettes, he smoked about four and then finished it. May the world rest in peace for him.
Finally, tell us something about Dan Drev's quiz. Did you take part too?
There was an association called Mystery, I think, and they do pub quizzes. So I took part in one pub quiz and they told me that they were always hopelessly sold out, that so many people wanted to go there. I came there, of course the pub quiz was full and I thought that as a creator I would win it. I was in the PENALTH place.
There are people who know how much Šaňo Fekete owed all the people. He says it at the funeral and we just scored some amount there, I don't know how much it is and they know it down to the last cent. They know EVERYTHING about Dan Drev and that's when I realised that okay, maybe it could be quite a cult.
>>
