April 22nd, 2020 
Jackson Murphy 
Author N.D. Wilson’s picture book Hello Ninja became an instant success when it was released in 2013. Season 1 of the Netflix animated series adaptation debuted to big ratings in November. Season 2 premieres this Friday, April 24th. Wilson shares details on the new episodes and how (to quote his Twitter bio) he went from “novelist turned filmmaker/producer.”
Jackson Murphy: What a time to be putting out new episodes of an animated show for families. How are you and your family doing?
N.D. Wilson: We’re doing well. It’s really interesting. I got a whole pack of kids – my own built-in focus group. My oldest is 18 and in his senior year (of high school). His littlest sibling (I have five kids) is 10 and in the fourth grade. Now I’ve got an 18-year-old doing Calculus next to the 10-year-old reading her little middle-grade books at the same dining room table. They’re having fun being with each other. It’s a weird family solidarity moment. My little one is thrilled that her classmates are now her older siblings. And of course the older siblings are a little more restless. But it’s been great for us as a family to come together and get through this thing.
JM: And lots of families can gather around their TVs together and watch Season 2 of “Hello Ninja”. Season 1 debuted in November. How has the response to the show been?
NDW: I didn’t know what to expect. I love the episodes – such a talented team. The animation teams – the lead animators and board artists every step of the way… I was thrilled. But I knew that I was hardly objective. I was such a “Hello Ninja” fan myself that I was so fired-up about everything that it was hard for me to know, “Okay, people who’ve never seen this; people who are coming to the property cold, how are they gonna respond?” And the response was overwhelming. It’s one of the most popular preschool shows Netflix has ever had.
I had such a blast seeing little kids all over the world have “Hello Ninja” birthday parties. That makes me really happy because you want your best friends at your birthday parties, right? So to see Wesley, Georgie and Pretzel the cat on the guest list for little kids’ birthday parties in every hemisphere all around the planet was really thrilling.
JM: That’s cool because I was thinking about it… and around Halloween time, kids like to dress-up as ninjas. It’s one of the most popular things you can be. Was that kind of popularity one of the things that really inspired you for the concept of the book?
NDW: Yeah, it was. I write big, fat novels. I write adventure fantasy novels. My youngest at the time was 3 and she came over to me with one of my novels and said, “Where are my books? Where are my stories?” She wanted one for herself. And so we sat down that night, and I was thinking about different characters she really likes. She really liked the concept of ninjas, as I think every little kid does. So we wrote together that night “Hello Ninja”. And the bones of what I wrote that night became a book I self-published for her. I self-published it to go faster because I could’ve gone to New York, but it would’ve taken two years and she would’ve been 5 or 6. It just goes really quickly. She was thrilled.
And then Starbucks picked it as a Pick of the Week and gave away the i-book nationwide and gave away hundreds of thousands of copies of the i-book. Then Target picked-up the physical book, and everything started snowballing… way past what I could handle. So I sold it to Harper-Collins and then did a new book, an expanded picture book released last Fall. And of course the show went into development at Netflix – and then production… partnered-up with Atomic Cartoons. And the whole process has been a rollercoaster of awesomeness – it’s really been fantastic.
JM: For you, jumping into this TV world… how was that experience? And was it sort of what you thought it was gonna be?
NDW: I was such a rookie. There were a lot of things to learn. But in 2007, I published my first book with Random House, and I could write faster than the industry would publish. As a storyteller more than a novelist, I just love telling stories. My then agent and now production partner on “Hello Ninja” set me up with a story consultancy at DreamWorks Animation because I wanted to taste this world and know how it worked and learn how it operated. I got in that door and began to see and learn and observe the media side. I’d write a novel and then go off for a few months and do some stuff in L.A. That was toes in the water.
And then the industry changed… rapidly. And I got to be there for it… and step out into this new world of streaming and production went through the roof in terms of the number of shows getting made. So I had been around the edges and knew enough to not be a total rookie coming in on this. But it was definitely a learning experience and it was exciting. I didn’t have any trepidation at all; I wasn’t really nervous because I was familiar enough with the process and everything else around it – and because the team was so solid. While I learned a lot, I was a little bit surprised at how comfortable it felt and how natural it felt… and how much I was thinking immediately I was thinking, “I need to do this again… often.” (laughs)
JM: In watching some of the episodes from Season 1, I like that the show is consistently upbeat and positive. I like the energy. So you say the experience was really comfortable for you – did it take an episode or two to kind of get the tone down or did it just seem right away that this tone and feel worked?
NDW: We worked with Atomic a lot in pre-production and setting the tone and bringing-in Forrest Dickison, the artist that I did the book with. He helped establish the artistic tone and feel of the show. We spent enough time talking with the artists at Atomic and the other producers and execs to make sure we were getting off on the right foot – to make sure we were setting the right tone, a tone I wanted. That upbeat, wish-fulfillment. By the time we were moving into story and going into Episode 1, I was all-comfortable.
And the goal had been, tonally, as a comp in the pitch at Netflix… I boiled it down to saying, “Think of those big, colorful Sunday ‘Calvin & Hobbes’ comic strips. I wanna chase that but without the cynical downbeat at the end.” The punchline in “Calvin” was that there’d always be some cynical irony at the end. I just want to stay in joy and wish fulfillment. And I want these episodes to be joyful and to be upbeat and to never crash. We’re gonna push imagination and wonderment for kids. That’s what we’re here for, and that’s something everybody bought in.
JM: These episodes are so fun for kids, and they have a lot of sound effects. There’s movement and swishes and Boings from a bunny.
NDW: Mike Dowding, the director, did such a great job integrating so many different elements. We wanted to have a little bit of a “Looney Tunes”, Saturday Morning Cartoons vibe. We could tap into that feel, and the sound was a huge part of that. The kinetic nature of the characters… they’re so bouncy in that classic “Looney Tunes” way. But that’s what ninjas are. These ninjas are amazing. And the directing was so dynamic. And the fact that Mike brought-in so much camerawork and awesome framing and camera moves to this show 7 year olds and down are watching… why would we have to be this sophisticated for kids? Well, we want to have fun. We want every episode to be joyful and thrilling.
JM: The Season 2 trailer is out, and it seems like the scale is even bigger. And the adventures are even bigger! You’ve got western and pirate genres this time.
NDW: From the beginning, we knew we wanted this to be a traveling show. New big sets. We’re gonna do new big builds that are gonna be used in one or two episodes and then we’re gonna do other big builds. We’re not gonna try and set stories in the exact same set over and over and over again because kids don’t do that. That’s not where kids go with their imagination – they go in new and awesome directions. The other thing that kids do is they’ll layer imagination. It’s like, “we’re playing ninjas and now we’re cowboys. We’re Ninja Cowboys!” There’s all sorts of awesome things we can do because we’re talking about the power of imagination.
This goes back to when my older kids were little: I’d do stories with them every night. They’d each get to pick a character, and then I’d tell them a story with all those characters. My daughter would say things like, “I want a butterfly unicorn ballerina princess. That’s my character.” And then my son would say, “I want a giant creepy land squid that only eats butterfly unicorn ballerina princesses.” They would layer stuff so naturally and instinctively with their imaginations. Ninjas playing cowboy… ninjas facing-off with a pirate or wizard is totally natural, playful and fun. And this second season… really builds-off of the first season and goes after that. Bigger sets. Bigger genre moves. Hat-tips to kung fu movies and westerns. And really, really imaginative layering that fans are gonna be blown away by. And I’m really excited to watch them with my own kids.
JM: This is all so smart. Did one of your kids come-up with Frosty Freezer Land? It looks like there’s some giant pizza involved with that?
NDW: (laughs) I think I have to give the hat-tip on that one to [showrunner] Mark Palmer and the writers. Let’s just say: one of my own kids could have, but they didn’t need to. (laughs) The writers got there first.
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