Dana Snyder, Aqua Teen Hunger Force cast reunite at 'Animate! Raleigh'

Among them was veteran voice actor Dana Snyder best known for his role as "Master Shake" on the hit Adult Swim show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.”

The show features three sentient food objects, Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad, and their friend Carl. The show initially centered around solving the mysteries but eventually moved to a Seinfeld-esque plot.

Snyder became involved in the show through an old friend from high school, who knew one of the showrunners at Adult Swim. She suggested him.

Snyder left his audition on the answering machine of co-creator Dave Willis.

“The character is so abusive and loud-mouthed...it was over the top and we loved it,” Willis, who also plays Meatwad and Carl on the show, said. “We wanted to play it for our bosses and accidentally deleted it.”

Carey Means, the voice actor for Frylock on the show, said at first, he was skeptical of the show idea.

'Animate!' started after GalaxyCon success, makes Raleigh debut

“When I did the audition, I was like, “What is this?’ A floating box of french fries?” Means said. “[They] explained what Frylock was: he’s the straight man and wants to solve the mystery, the other two were idiots, so that’s all I had to go on."

The show came a long way from its auditions on Willis’ voicemail, running for over 20 years and spawning two movies, a legacy no one on the show anticipated.

“The idea that we would’ve made two movies, made over 140 episodes and all this marketing? That was never a thought in our mind,” Willis said. “We just love these characters and made a bunch of TV out of it.”

The stars and creators of the show gathered at the Animate! over the weekend. It was their first time sharing the stage since the mid-2000s, according to GalaxyCon president and founder Mike Broder.

Animate! Raleigh is happening through Sunday at the convention center. It started after the success of GalaxyCon in multiple cities across the country.

"We used to do Animate! in south Florida years ago when we had been doing SuperCon down there," Broder said. "When we did that, we retired the anime brand for a while. We retired it until we were going to bring back. It's a very good complimentary show to GalaxyCon."

Broder said the GalaxyCon brought in over $8 million in economic impact to the city of Raleigh and had 55,000 people in attendance for the convention in 2023.

“We’ve grown the annual convention to the point where it’s now the biggest event in our series, which stretches across the country,” Broder said.

Broder said he expects the economic impact of Animate! Raleigh to be around $2 million.

"If GalaxyCon is like the big Hilton, Animate! is like the boutique hotel," Snyder said.

Snyder is a regular at fan conventions like GalaxyCon and has noticed changes in crowds since the pandemic.

“I feel like after the pandemic, people were responsive and wanted to get out more,” Snyder said of post-COVID crowds. “It might be even more than before the pandemic. It reminded people why they should get out of their house.”