Creator and EP Chris Gilligan talks about his new preschool animation series about five adorable pets, adopted by an 8-year-old inventor, with fits them with super-powered robo-suits so they can save other pets in trouble; debuts April 1 on Disney Jr.
While growing up in New York, supervising director Chris Gilligan’s daughter and son shared a bedroom in the family’s small apartment.To create as much joy out of the close quarters as possible, Gilligan started a family tradition called “Story Soup” where before bedtime, the kids had to march around their shared bedroom and grab toys – or “ingredients” as Gilligan called them – to create one epic story.
“My daughter had stuffed animals and all that on one side and my son had all the robots and things on his side and I’d sit between the beds, take all these ingredients they collected, and mashed them together so we had characters like a stuffed bunny in a robot suit,” shares Gilligan, also known for .
“So, when it came to creating a new preschool series for Disney, I told them about Story Soup with my kids and they totally got the sincerity of it.That’s how started.” Created and executive produced for Disney Jr.by Gilligan, the animated series features five adorable pets without a home until kid inventor Dax adopts them and fits them with super-powered robo-suits so they can go on missions to save other pets in trouble.
Set on the futuristic MetroPet Island, features action-packed adventures, absurdly comical pet-villains and cool robotic inventions.The series, produced by Academy Award-winning Brown Bag Films in association with Disney Jr., launches on Disney+ today, April 1.The all-star celebrity voice cast includes Cynthia Erivo, Alan Cumming, Valerie Bertinelli, Dulé Hill, Ana Gasteyer, Susan Kelechi Watson and Alison Pill. The first full episode, “Pizza Panic,” was released two months ago on YouTube: “The idea was to put this eclectic group of animals together, each having a different personality, and have them deal with some real conflicts and sibling conflicts that kids might be going through,” explains Gilligan. Like, for example, the conflict that comes from a child sharing a room with a sibling who has very different interests from their own.
Gilligan continues, “We wanted to encourage things like working as a team, solving problems together and teaching children to empathize not only among themselves, but also with their pets.In our show, Dax almost takes an adult role as the caretaker of these animals.The pets are his responsibility.
He nurtures them.He guides them.And he’s only eight years old.” In addition, the show allows children to see themselves in these pets, who fueled by Dax’s encouragement, become super pets - bigger and more aspirational versions of themselves who pay that love and kindness forward, Gilligan notes, by becoming the “rescued pets who rescue pets.” “You only buy into the superhero stuff if it's emotionally based,” he adds.
But like in all inspirational superhero shows, one of the first orders of business was to make sure the super suits were super cool. “They’re all color coded, with all colors represented to speak to community and belonging,” explains Gilligan.“But when you get down to the functions of the suits, the idea was to have these exaggerated versions of the five animals with five senses represented.Hopper, the bunny, has this super hearing. Booster, the dog has super smell.
Shelly has her hard shell, of course, but she’s also a foodie with super taste.Wingo was easy because, being a bird, he has overhead sight.Allie the cat, along with her robo claw, has super touch through vibrations with her whiskers and can find a lost pet.
All of those abilities are built into the suits.” Taking a page from the handbook, these suits were built to turn these everyday quadrupeds into bipedal, booster-powered animal rescuers. Though the five senses concept wasn’t part of the initial pitch, it has served the show well in its efforts to be inclusive, not only showing how different friends can have different skills they bring to the table, but also different sensitivities. “Hopper is a hugger,” says Gilligan.“He’s all about the hugs, but there are friends who you need to ask first before going in for a hug.We did multiple episodes on these kinds of boundaries.
One of my favorites is called ‘The Towering Inflato,’ and it’s about a porcupine who has taken issue with people getting a little too close.” And when one of the show’s trickster villains turns a building into a bouncy house, the super pets have to rescue said porcupine from every introvert's worst nightmare: a bouncy house.The pets’ leader Dax also has a limb difference and there’s another episode of that features a jaguar who has a limb difference as well and feels immense trepidation because of what makes him different. “There’s a fantastic song in that episode called ‘Take a Leap and Try’ and it’s all about courage,” notes Gilligan.“Dax has a robotic prosthetic arm that works for him.
But this jaguar doesn’t necessarily want that.And that’s ok.You have to find your own way of doing things.
Courage comes from the inside and sometimes you need to take a leap.” Gilligan wanted the pets' emotional awareness to come through in the animation, which is why the CG-animated characters’ fur is so texturized and soft compared to the more plastic-like appearance of other preschool series animals, such as those in . “Technology has caught up to TV production in allowing for fur,” notes Gilligan.“For a long time, we couldn’t afford it because of render time.But our heroes have soft centers.
And this series is all about their hearts and about how it’s what’s on the inside that makes a hero a hero.So, while their suits obviously have hard exteriors, we wanted the animals inside them to be very soft.The people at Brown Bag were fantastic partners in pulling that off and we got beautiful results.
They leaped into the deep end of the pool with us the whole way and we tried to have that textured, soft look with as many animals as we could.When we couldn’t, we tried to be clever about how to animate them.” The team was also clever in how they made animal owners’ hair resemble their pets in some form or another.Chef Polly, who owns a pizza joint in town, owns an orange fish named Gill and Polly has the same orange fade in her hair.
Dame Luxley, who has a spiral-shelled crab named Crabitha, has an updo that’s swirled like her pet’s shell. “Those are some fun little Easter eggs in the show for people to catch,” says Gilligan.“But, at the core, it’s more that these are visual cues for these human-pet emotional connections.” During production, as Gilligan and his team assembled their story soup for Disney, they came upon an idea trifecta that then served as the foundation for everything else they did in the show. “Every story is going to have the three H's: the heart, the humor and the heroics,” says Gilligan.“There’s always a pet in trouble, or something important to that pet that's in trouble, and that event separates them from their person.
So then, it’s up to Dax and his team to get everyone back together.Stories get complicated on their own, so we needed a way to keep each episode on track.” All of ’s stories are made with kids’ development in mind.But, just as Dax plays a key role in making sure his pets are ready to help others in trouble, parents play a similar role in helping their children grow up with confidence, empathy, healthy boundaries and a super sense of right and wrong.
And Gilligan is clear about the fact that is for families to watch together. “Kids are life-changing,” says Gilligan.“You become a parent and it’s like, ‘Ah.Yes.
Purpose.’ It’s also a profound moment of simplicity where you realize you’re responsible for these little ones.The hope for this show is that it demonstrates community, kindness and lets kids and parents know that figuring stuff out, and making mistakes along the way, is ok.You take these little pets, put them in these gigantic suits that can do all this stuff, and it’s this fun expression to let kids find their way, grow and express themselves in super ways.” Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.
She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
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