How HBO’s ‘The Penguin’ Turned Oz Cobb Into a Dolly Parton Fan

Batman fans are used to seeing bold new takes on the DC superhero and his rogues’ gallery of villains on screen. They’re used to watching movie stars rotate through the roles of Bruce Wayne and the Joker, providing their own take on the iconic characters. They’ve seen gritty interpretations of Gotham galore, campy versions of maniacal Arkham inmates, and even animated Lego people acting out the drama they know so well. But the very first episode of HBO’s The Penguin ends with something Batman fans have definitely never seen before: The Penguin ( Colin Farrell ) rocking out to Dolly Parton ‘s “9 to 5” after getting away with murder.

Yup, The Penguin Episode 1 “After Hours” ends with Penguin, aka Oz Cobb, triumphantly vibing to Dolly Parton’s ode to the professional working woman in front of his new sidekick, Victor Augilar ( Rhenzy Feliz ). It’s a needledrop that not only infuses the often pitch dark series with much needed humor, but it also firmly tethers The Penguin — like Matt Reeves ‘s The Batman — in the real world.

“We knew that they were going to get into the car and that some embarrassing song was going to play on the radio, but we shot it without knowing exactly what song that would be,” The Penguin director and EP Craig Zobel told Decider. “And we tried a bajillion songs. It was quite an adventure.”

Zobel explained that the process involved trying to figure out exactly what this specific “embarrassing song” would say about Oz. “That was really how we kind of ended up at ‘9 to 5,'” he said.

“Maybe he had that tape, and, you know, he grew up really loving Dolly Parton. He wouldn’t want Victor to know that while he’s trying to be tough and scary character. It was the right mix, it seemed like.”

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The Penguin is an intimate look at one of the most recognizable villains from the Batman canon, with a twist. Set immediately after the events of 2022’s The Batman, The Penguin follows Oswald “Oz” Cobb — not Cobblepot — as he attempts to use the chaos caused by Paul Dano’s Riddler to his advantage. With the death of Carmine Falcone (John Turturro in the film, Mark Strong in the show), a power vacuum has emerged in Gotham’s underworld. One that Oz is keen to fill at any cost.

According to The Batman and The Penguin executive producer Dylan Clark, much of what fans will see unfold onscreen in the new HBO series came from showrunner Lauren LeFranc. Specifically, the surprises.

“We grounded our characters in the film so that they were characters that you saw attributes and characteristics from or  inside the comics, but they were a new exploration,” Clark said. “Lauren did similarly here with the television exploration. There’s versions of the Penguin seen in the comics that Colin is doing, but the way Lauren wanted to emotionally and psychologically explore him in this series, there’s lots of new, surprising developments.”

Developments such as allowing Oz to impulsively take out one key member of the competition in The Penguin ‘s first fifteen minutes, decisions like pairing him with a sweet orphan with a stutter, and, of course, the choice to make him a Dolly Parton fan.

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When Decider spoke with Lauren LeFranc, she made it clear that her fellow EPs Matt Reeves and Dylan Clark empowered her to follow her own muse when it came to telling Oz Cobb’s story — even though her show had to lead directly into The Batman sequel the duo is currently developing.

“I mean, I knew Oz’s trajectory. It was a ‘rise to power’ story and that was really the main thrust of the the series that they gave me,” LeFranc told Decider. “So I didn’t have any kind of handcuffs in terms of the storytelling, which was really great and wonderful on their part.”

“I knew where I needed to end Oz to lead into the film. Beyond that, it was always a conversation, you know, ‘Can I do this? Can I say this or that?’ when it came to something larger that involved Gotham City.”

Craig Zobel told Decider that in addition to always looking for moments of levity, he was always debating the push-and-pull of how much of the Penguin’s iconography to lean into onscreen.

“At the beginning of the show, it’s like, well, do you have him use an umbrella? You know, umbrellas are pretty common, but iwe weren’t trying to make the old character,”  Zobel said. “But also at the same time, a guy would use an umbrella if it’s raining hard, you know?”

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“So it was like always debating whether or not like that was the right move at the time and when we could kind of sneak things in.”

One specific nod to the Penguin that Zobel was not able to sneak in, though he tried? A reference to the character’s iconic monocle.

“I, at some point, pitched him having sunglasses and like one half of them gets broken so that he would have a monocle,” Zobel said. “That was too far. We’re not going to do that, you know?”

So, Dolly Parton in The Penguin ? Yes. Broken sunglasses to evoke a monocle? No.

“We always knew this would be a character study on Oz and all of our other characters that I created,” LeFranc said. “So in that vein, they really just gave me a lot of freedom.”

Indeed, as Matt Reeves kept pressing to Decider, the job of adapting Batman and his cohorts for the screen is all about discovering ways to make the material new.

“That’s part of what this job is, that’s exciting, is to find a way to reinterpret. And the reinterpretation, I think, is part of what makes audiences excited, too,” Reeves said. “Finding that intersection between the things people are familiar with and then introducing them something to something that feels new and feels like a compelling reason to go back into that well.”

Which is why the Penguin is now a Dolly Parton fan.

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