Nick Kroll Reveals Lady Gaga and Howard Stern as the Two Stars ‘Big Mouth’ Just Couldn’t Get

Big Mouth, Netflix’s hit animated series following a group of friends navigating puberty, is coming to an end after eight seasons, following a rare model where its characters actually grow up.

“It is puberty and we really covered so much of what we set out to do and about this journey,” co-creator and star Nick Kroll told The Hollywood Reporter at the show’s Los Angeles premiere on Thursday of the decision to wrap up. “Most animated shows, they go on forever; people are frozen in whatever time they are in. Our show evolved and the kids evolved and they moved through time and they grew and they changed, and that was part of the joy of making the show.”

Co-creator Andrew Goldberg echoed that after working for over a decade on Family Guy, where those characters all stayed the same age, “I kind of assumed that our show would be the same. I remember having a conversation in season two where my other collaborators were like no, this is a show about changes, the kids have to get older and puberty is a discrete time of life, it doesn’t go on forever. So it only made sense to end it once they were getting to that age.”

On top of Kroll voicing dozens of characters himself, the show has welcomed over 200 guest stars throughout its run — but that doesn’t mean they’ve gotten every A-lister they wanted.

While celebrating Steve Buscemi — as a little cat called Mr. Pink — joining the final season, Kroll also noted they “wanted to get Howard Stern and we couldn’t get him. He did so much in inspiring the show; he’s the best, he’s the king. And Lady Gaga we tried to get as well, turns out she’s busy.”

Goldberg echoed, “We really, really wanted Howard Stern to do the show; he doesn’t do anything and we were no exception” and additional co-creator Mark Levin added they “asked Lady Gaga to do a song in the last season and she was too busy, that was sad. But not surprising.”

And when it came to deciding exactly how to end the show, the team, “really went on a journey of figuring out how do you end the story of characters who are just beginning their lives? And that was a big challenge to figure out,” Levin explained of its teenage protagonists. “Fear of the future and fear of the unknown is the thing that really jumped out as the biggest monster of all for them to confront.”

Big Mouth‘s eighth and final season is now streaming on Netflix.