See Kumail Nanjiani do Lord's work as Jesus in Bless the Harts

Fox aims to amp up its animation lineup on Sunday with a comedy about a down-and-outlandish Southern family voiced by a few people who might sound familiar: Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Jillian Bell, Ike Barinholtz, and Kumail Nanjiani. The Harts have “a tendency to make the wrong choice at a lot of turns,” warns creator Emily Spivey (Up All Night), who describes matriarch Betty (Rudolph) as “a bad-choice buffet.”

Bless The Harts will even serve up a side of Jesus (Nanjiani) — as in, the Son of God — who’s tight with Betty’s daughter, Jenny (Wiig). This isn’t exactly divine intervention, though: “He is more like Jenny’s best girlfriend,” explains Spivey.

The idea to include Jesus hit close to him for Spivey. “My sister’s a Methodist minister and my brother-in-law’s a theology professor,” she says. “I knew I wanted to incorporate Jesus because in the south, Jesus is everywhere. Even if you’re not a churchgoer, he’s just everywhere. And I felt that there was no way I couldn’t put him in the show. So my sister Amy and my brother-in-law helped me craft this Jesus, meaning I was like, ‘What would Jesus say if you asked, ‘Can I pray for money?’ I just thought, comedically, it could be very fun for Jenny to be bouncing stuff off actual Jesus.” Check out this exclusive clip above to see Nanjiiani (trying to) do the Lord’s work when Jesus tells Jenny that she’s chasing fool’s good.

Speaking of deities, Spivey reveals that the upcoming Halloween episode will pay tribute to a departed rock god: “It’s got a Ronnie James Dio song parody, a ghost, and it’s very sweet.”

Bless the Harts premieres Sept. 29 at 8:30 p.m.

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