Tom Rogers, Emmy-winning writer on Elena of Avalor, is now the executive producer of The Chicken Squad. The new series based on the popular books premieres this Friday May 14th at 7:30pm on Disney Junior. Rogers is excited for the show’s launch… on what just happens to be National Dance Like a Chicken Day. (This interview was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: What made you fall in love with Doreen Cronin and Kevin Cornell’s Chicken Squad books that this series is based on?

Tom Rogers: I’ve been a writer for Disney for [about] 20 years and a staff writer for Elena of Avalor. While I was there, I was working with the Disney Junior people on development. And they had these books. They said, “Please read them. We’d love to turn them into a series.” And when I read them I completely fell in love with them because it took me back to mystery books that I read when I was a kid that I used to love. [The Chicken Squad] has these great things about heart – stories about kids who are using their own wits and ingenuity to solve problems… to learn how to help their neighbors… to take great joy in that and then be silly and have fun while doing it. That’s all the magic you need to make a great animated show.

JM: That’s perfect. And the three kids are Coop, Sweetie and Little Boo. How was it designing the three of them because they’re slightly different in look from how they are in the books?

TR: They are. That was one of the shifts we wanted to make as we were moving from a book to a series. You wanna make sure your characters are visually distinctive and easy to recognize the second they’re on the screen. We worked with character designers to really separate their looks and make sure they really capture their personalities. Coop is the inventive one. He uses his ingenuity and MacGyver skills to invent tools that will help them solve cases. Sweetie is both the athletic one and she also has a knack for science. She helps a lot with their forensic investigations. Little Boo is super speedy but also brings all the attitude. And lastly, Captain Tully, who’s played by Yvette Nicole Brown, is the wise and funny mentor in the group. She’s a retired search and rescue dog who helps them along the way but gives them plenty of room so they can learn to solve problems on their own.

JM: I watch game shows all the time and [Brown] is on every single one of them. What made you choose her for this role?

TR: I knew her from other shows like Community and Talking Dead. But we worked with her on Elena of Avalor. She played one of the Jaquin characters. She’s an absolutely delightful person in addition to being funny and a fantastic singer. She’s warm and funny. That’s everything we want in Captain Tully. She was the top choice from the beginning. And we wanted to make sure we wrote a great song for her in Season 1, so she has this wonderful song coming up in a future episode about how every dog needs a home and the value of… rescuing stray animals.

JM: Fantastic. And I also love that in your voice cast you have Maxwell Simkins as Little Boo. I’ve just started watching The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers on Disney+ and his comedic timing is so good. Did you notice that right away working with him?

TR: The second he walked into his audition, he made us laugh. He’s a natural. And honestly, the outtakes from our recording sessions are… I wish our scripts were quite as funny as he is off screen. He’s amazing. Ramone Hamilton plays Coop. He’s terrific… fun and a little bit nerdy, like Coop. And Gabby Graves is sweet and strong, which is everything Sweetie.

JM: And I like that the three main characters have this equipment and clothing room. When they go in every time and sing their song, you give them a little something different to do every time. There’s really an opportunity there for comedy, which is so smart.

TR: Yes, absolutely. They get their charge every day and they sing their mission song, “The Chicken Charge”. And at the end of it, they’ve got a keypad, punch in the things they need, pull a lever, this wheel rotates and out pops the tools they’ll need for that day. Sometimes it’s something completely obvious like shovels to go digging, if that’s what they need to do. And sometimes they’re on a rescue mission and they’ve got a cooler, a spatula and a life jacket. Who knows what that’s going to be used for but they will figure it out soon. That sequence is so fun.

JM: You mentioned working on Elena of Avalor. You won a Daytime Emmy last year for it. That must’ve been a great way to send off that series.

TR: It was fantastic. You don’t write to get awards, but it’s awfully gratifying when it happens. We had a really phenomenal writing team. The whole team won for the full season. In a way, we’re all standing on each other’s shoulders to win that award. It’s a nice recognition of the amount of teamwork and group storytelling that’s involved with getting a show like this successfully to air.

JM: And teamwork is a core part of Chicken Squad as well. I wanna transition for just a second. You mentioned being at Disney for a long time. You’ve written sequels to many animated classics. This list is really impressive: Kronk’s New Groove, The Lion King 1 1/2, The Jungle Book 2, Lady and the Tramp II and Cinderella II. You also did The Little Mermaid prequel Ariel’s Beginning. I wonder how much pressure you had in writing these sequels and prequels to movies that are so beloved and have been for so long. Did you feel that pressure?

TR: We did feel pressure, and I think one of the important things is to start in a place of respect for the original story. For example, with The Lion King 1 1/2, we met with Irene Mecchi and Rogers Allers, who wrote and directed it and kicked around ideas with them and got their investment and sign off on it. They were pushing us to have more fun and make more fun of the original movie. it was good training for The Chicken Squad, which was: have respect for your source material. When working on adapting these books, we worked very closely with Doreen Cronin to talk about the core ideas… kids solving their own problems, having a great time, taking joy in helping others, being community helpers, Captain Tully being there as the mentor. They’re the essential elements of The Chicken Squad. We’re as true to the book as we can be on those things.

JM: And one of the other things I noticed in the episode “A Speedy Exit” is that it focuses on the importance of finishing what you start. What does that mean to you and in terms of making a TV series like this?

TR: Wow, that’s a really good question. Shifting from writing movies to writing television, one of the biggest shifts is pace. We had maybe three or four years to bring a single one of those movies from idea to fruition, whereas on Chicken Squad, we have 29 episodes in our first season. Each of those has two segments, so it’s 58 stories we have to get on the air.

JM: Wow.

TR: You have to be bringing things to completion and finishing what you start… those are the words we live by. That episode is fantastic. It was written by Rachel Ruderman, who’s our co-producer and story editor. As story editor, she’s the head writer. She manages the writing team, so I think she was… maybe sending them a little message to finish what they started. It’s really important.

JM: Also in the episode I screened, the chicks try to re-vamp their house. Have you ever thought about re-vamping your house… in the same sort of wacky/crazy way they do?

TR: (laughs) I am married to an interior designer.

JM: Whoa.

TR: What we have is an affliction that we endure here. I was definitely having a little bit of PTSD as we were making that episode. Of course we’re addicted to all the home improvement shows. It was a way to play out some of those stories in our own little chicken world way.

JM: I’m addicted to a lot of those HGTV shows, too in my house. They’re on all the time. That must be interesting. Critiquing the episodes and the houses… does that really happen all the time?

TR: It really happens.

JM: Well the HGTV people must love you two for watching their shows all the time. And with [Chicken Squad] being on Disney Junior and being part of the Disney brand, what does that mean to you? This lineup keeps growing and the content keeps getting better and better and there are more families watching now more than ever.

TR: It’s kind of the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Not to make too big a thing out of it but… I’ve been writing for Disney for a long time, but this is probably the first thing I’ve worked on that’s kind of… taking the hand off of Doreen’s books, it was kind of my baby from start to finish. I’m just proud that we’ve been able to create something that feels like a Disney show. It’s funny, it’s got humor, it’s got heart, it’s got heroism, it’s got great music and songs and it should appeal to kids and parents. I’m super proud to be part of the Disney family and Disney universe.