Trivia / Hank the Cowdog

• All-Star Cast: The podcast series starts Matthew McConaughey, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Leslie Jordan, and Cynthia Erivo.
• The Cast Showoff: John R. Ericson sings almost EVERY song in the audio books. The podcast version shows off the chops of Matthew McConaughey and Cynthia Erivo.
• Children Voicing Children: Although John usually sings the songs himself, the exceptions are some of the songs sung by Little Alfred, who unlike in normal dialogue will be voiced by an actual child. The podcast also features him voiced by Brody Stowers.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Erickson voices all of the characters in the audiobooks, including the females.
• Development Hell: There have been attempts to make the series into a feature film and an animated TV series. It's been over a year, and there's been no word on either of these.
• Disowned Adaptation: John R. Erickson was not pleased with the CBS animated adaptation because of the changes that were made (Sally May was the boss, Slim and Loper were just helping hands, the kids were gone, the cattle ranch was changed to a chicken farm).
• Role Reprise: While most of the characters in the podcast were given new voice actors, John R. Erickson would still show up as Wallace the Buzzard. Doubles as Creator Cameo.
• Technology Marches On: In the original version of "The Case of the Swirling Killer Tornado", Hank mentions that the song sung in the tornado can be heard in the cassette version of the book. Later printings would replace this with the more generic audio version. Audiobooks, on the other hand, are never redone, so one listening to The Case Of The One Eyed Killer Stud Horse may find it difficult to "cut out this portion of the tape" as Hank requests.
• What Could Have Been: Disney considered turning the series of books into an animated feature film. Erickson turned them down, because Disney wanted all the rights to his property and characters, which he was unwilling to sell.
• Write What You Know: Erickson was a rancher, so as you can guess the books use a lot of realistic ranching techniques. Hank himself was based on a dog owned by a former neighbor, and was borrowed to help with ranching. Like Hank, he was untrained and more trouble than he was worth.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: John R. Erickson admitted that he doesn't have anything like a storyboard when he writes his books. He comes up with a basic idea, and just starts writing until he makes a good conclusion in Chapter 12.