The new Disney+ animated series Monsters at Work (premiering Wednesday July 7th) picks-up right where Pixar’s Oscar winning 2001 feature Monsters, Inc. leaves-off. Mike and Sulley are back, but there are a bunch of new characters as well who help convert Monsters, Inc. from a place of scares to a facility for laughs. Executive Producer Bobs Gannaway (director of Planes: Fire & Rescue) shares what went into developing one of the most anticipated shows of the year.

Jackson Murphy: You’re doing THE NEXT DAY of this Monsters, Inc. world. Did you feel the pressure of writing this episode?

Bobs Gannaway: Yes. Just the idea. We’re all fans. We wouldn’t be in animation if we weren’t fans. So being handed the reins of Monsters, Inc., you wanna do right by it. That said, there’s a whole new audience out there as well. So the challenge of creating a story that will work for people who know what’s going on – and for people who are new to it – was great.

Bobs Gannaway: I will say this, Jackson, though, the most important thing is to make sure the audience cares before you start the plot. Make sure your audience is invested in your character before you really start the story. I’m a Star Wars kid. I’m from Oklahoma. I went to USC because I wanted to go where George Lucas went, right? So Tylor’s the same. He [went] to Monsters University because that’s where Sulley went. And then he’s got everything and he’s a good guy… Scare Cum Laude or whatever you want to say. And then the universe throws him a curveball and now he has to deal with that change. I’m hoping the audience actually goes, “Oh. I actually care. And I’m interested to go on the journey with this character.”

JM: Yes. I like how you focus on bringing in new characters. It’s not just “The Mike & Sulley Show” again. It is the new characters. How important was that for you?

BG: From the beginning in my discussions with Pete Docter when we talked about the show, it was very important. He was very gracious in the sense of “Go have fun in the world! But expand the world, create new characters and have the audience fall in love with a new group of characters.” He was very much supportive of that. I didn’t want to just repeat the movie. This idea came up of… “The Monsters Behind the Monsters”. Who are the monsters who take care of Monsters, Inc.?

When you go to a hospital, there’s a surgeon, but if there’s no water coming out of the tap and that surgeon can’t wash his hands, you can’t get surgery. The plumber is just as important as the surgeon. And we have a similar situation here. We have these superstar scarers – now jokesters – on the Scare Floor – now Laugh Floor. But we have this facilities team that needs to maintain this operation or it doesn’t happen.

Bobs Gannaway (left) and Jackson Murphy (right)

JM: Val is delightful. I love listening to Mindy Kaling. And with Ben Feldman voicing Tylor… this is almost like Superstore all over again with Jonah coming in as the new guy. Did you get a sense of deja vu from him coming into this character?

BG: Yeah. His Superstore character is very much inspiring the sort of sensibility of the same character. His character is coming from an outside into a group and has to figure the group out. He could bring that into it. And what I love about Ben’s voice is… because of the concept, he can actually be flawed. The universe threw him a curveball. So it’s okay for him to get a little upset about that. And that doesn’t make him unlikable. And what’s great about Ben is, he has this lovable voice that we could put in this big scary monster, a lovable, vulnerable voice – and then we can have the universe throw him a curveball and you’re having fun seeing him try to figure it out. It was great. And Ben was fantastic, not only from a voice standpoint but also very invested in the stories and elevating during the production process.

JM: That’s great to hear. And I realized in watching these first two episodes that you could not make this series (even though it’s the continuation of Monsters, Inc.) without Monsters University. It really makes sense. How often did you go back into both movies for the details and cameos? How was that research?

BG: Pixar provided us with… a lot of the development art for the two films – so we could look at things that maybe they explored that their story didn’t ask for. A good example is the MIFT cart. That was actually a design that was from Monsters, Inc. that they didn’t use that we sort of realized. Watching the films – but not being too shackled to it. You don’t want to have creative paralysis where you’re afraid to do something new. Finding that balance. I think Bob Peterson said it best when we were working with him. He’s the voice of Roz and Rose… Are they the same person? (laughs) He actually said to me once, “Don’t forget: we’re in the entertainment business.” So it’s gotta be fun and entertaining. But the world is real and there are rules. So you wanna find that sweet spot between having a good time and wanting to be super respectful of the source material. But we also wanna give the audience something new.

JM: And you do. And in looking at the episodes in terms of pacing structure with scenes that are a little bit longer than other animated shows. Do you find that what you’ve created is refreshingly, and very successfully, old-fashioned? Because I think it is.

BG: TV has a different pace than film… sometimes. There’s great fast-paced films. But we really wanted to make the show feel like a theatrical [film]. I told the crew, “We’re not making a TV series. We’re making 10 little movies. Think that way.” For example, one of the big priorities: we pay very close attention to camera and making sure the camera supports story, not just document the animation. We went back and backwards engineered the lens kit from Monsters, Inc. It uses very specific lenses on their virtual cameras, and we did the same. The idea was: We’re gonna do 100 little things that accomplish two things: elevate the quality and make it feel like the original.

JM: The quality is high.

BG: And that was not one silver bullet. That was everybody challenging the process and thinking, “What best practices can we bring from features into the TV experience?”

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Jackson Murphy

Jackson Murphy is a movie critic and entertainment columnist. He is the creator of the website Lights-Camera-Jackson.com, and has made numerous appearances on television and radio.

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