October 8th, 2024 
Jackson Murphy 
One of Nickelodeon’s most popular animated shows, Blaze and the Monster Machines, is celebrating its 10th Anniversary on the air. A special new episode, in which Blaze and his pals recall their first-ever race, debuts Thursday October 24th at 1pm ET & PT. Creators Jeff Borkin and Ellen Martin share what the milestone means to them in this Animation Scoop Q&A. (This interview was conducted as an Email Q&A and was edited for length and clarity. Images Courtesy: NICK)
Jackson Murphy: Can you believe it’s been a decade since the first episode aired?
Ellen Martin: No! And yes. Time has flown. We meet teenagers who were megafans ten years ago, and brand-new preschool fans who were just a twinkle in their parents’ eyes when the show first aired. So, ten years is… a lot!
Jeff Borkin: When Ellen and I first started discussing the idea for Blaze I had a newborn. That newborn is looking at colleges now!
JM: What’s your biggest memory of making the first episode, as well as this special anniversary episode?
EM: To go even farther back, when we developed the pilot, seeing the first animation test was an emotional turning point for me. All the twists and turns of writing, design, casting, and boarding all fell into place with the tangible visual of Blaze speeding down a track. It was going to be a real thing! Making the special anniversary episode was really all about finding a balance of fun, since we got to make a big tonal shift by turning our big monster trucks into little, little kids, and also making sure we continue to serve our audience by still giving them big monster truck action. The real standout moment was seeing the animation paired with new kid voiceover talent. So funny, really cute, and just a total surprise.
JM: How have you seen the evolution of the series over the past decade?
EM: We’ve found ways to push genre in order to play around with our storytelling. But the thing is, that as much as we might want the show to evolve over the course of a lot of years and episodes, we’ve always returned to the basics our viewers came for: A hero on an adventure solving problems with STEM solutions. That last part might sound funny, but STEM has been our secret sauce all along.
JM: Which character(s) do you most closely identify with?
JB: I wish I saw myself as a strong, capable hero like Blaze. But the reality is that Ellen and I probably identify most closely with Pickle. A perpetual optimist, Pickle somehow manages to always be having fun, no matter the chaos that swirling around him. Life is hard. Might as well be more like Pickle and enjoy the ride!
JM: How have you experienced the fan impact (from all ages) firsthand over these 10 years?
EM: We’ll meet kids whose parents want us to know what big fans their kids are. The key is to tell the kids that we know Blaze. Personally. And that blows their minds.
JB: Because it’s a cartoon, we don’t get to experience the audience’s reactions in real time. But that can make it extra fun when signs on fandom pop up in our everyday lives. Like I remember one time I brought my daughter to a classmate’s birthday party only to have this jolt of shock when I saw it was a Blaze themed party. The parents had no idea I worked on the show. I kept it to myself so I could bask in the pride of it all for a couple hours.
JM: As you do in all your episodes, this anniversary one highlights STEM concepts for kids to understand. How important is the educational component?
EM: STEM is one of the huge differentiators for our show. Using Interactive gameplay to solve problems and bring kids into the story is critical because we’re introducing them to some pretty far-out science concepts that little kids don’t normally encounter. It’s a big responsibility since it’s not a common element of educational TV, so we take it seriously. Very!
JM: Do you go to real monster truck shows; do they serve as inspiration for stories / visuals?
JB: We went to several shows in the early days when we were creating the show. Seeing how much kids loved the trucks helped inspire the choices we made when designing Blaze and his friends. We knew teaching STEM was going to be a challenge. So, we were determined to make our science hero a character that kids would connect with right away. Turns out, we made a decent choice making him a monster truck!
JM: What do the next 10 years look like for “Blaze and the Monster Machines”?
JB: If they look anything like the previous ten years, we’d consider ourselves the luckiest people on earth.
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