Maya Rudolph Has Explained Why She Pronounces ‘Bubble Bath’ Like That On ‘Big Mouth’

Maya Rudolph might be fielding some interesting employment opportunities thanks to Joe Biden picking Kamala Harris as his running mate on the Democratic ticket, but one of her other notable roles is providing news these days as well. Rudolph is excellent as the female hormone monstress Connie on the adult animation show Big Mouth streaming on Netflix. As the show has evolved, her role has grown and changed, and now we know where one of her most infamous lines from the show came from.

Big Mouth is an adult animated show on Netflix known for a variety of things, first of which might be that you can say “bubble bath” in a variety of ways thanks to Rudolph. One of the first things we learn about Connie, in fact, is that she smells so good because she doesn’t use deodorant and she only takes bubble baths.

But it was the way she said that bathing method that so instantly stuck, and it seems the writers have intentionally inserted the phrase “bubble bath” into the script as many times as possible so she had to keep saying it. The line has become something of a running joke online, as it’s basically impossible to say it like Rudolph no matter how hard we try. And even she struggles to get it down on the fly.

And on an episode of Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, Rudolph explained where the voice and that line came from. The conversation starts at about the 44 minute mark. O’Brien rightfully praises Rudolph’s voice acting performance on the show — and the former Simpsons writer would certainly know a thing or two about animation. As Rudolph explained, she was originally hired to play Nick’s mom but the role was thrown to her as “kind of a one-off” thing. O’Brien then got right to it: he’s obsessed with the way she says “bubble bath” as Connie.

“Sometimes I’ll see something in print that reminds me that I’m not insane. But I got obsessed with the way your character said this certain word,” O’Brien said. “And then I saw online that people were talking about it.”

He tried, and failed, to recreate it himself, which made her say it and cause everyone on the episode to start laughing. She then recalled how the line evolved into what it is today.

“I remember sort of doing it and I remember sort of being egged on to… can you find more? Can you actually find more?” she said. “And we were trying to make — I think maybe initially because she’s meant to be a hormone monsters we were trying to make her voice a roller coaster. Just like a roller coaster of emotions. So it was sort of that low, high, low dipping stuff.”

O’Brien continued to fail at pronouncing “bubble bath” anywhere close to Rudolph, so she had some advice.

“It should slowly bubble out of the back of your throat,” she said, noting that O’Brien’s was sort of “revving up” like a car.

It’s a very funny moment on the podcast and Rudolph ends it with a great My Pillow joke. O’Brien strongly suggests that Rudolph should get an Emmy for the role, if not on those two words alone. If her inevitable time on SNL this fall doesn’t do the trick, this is a hell of a fallback plan.