September 15th, 2022 
Jackson Murphy 
Sofia the First and Elena of Avalor creator Craig Gerber has a new family animated series about the children of first responders and their awesome vehicle friends who are out to do good. Firebuds premieres Wed Sept. 21 at 10:30am on Disney Channel and Disney Junior, with new episodes also available on Disney+. Gerber and I catch-up and chat about the characters, energy and messages of Firebuds. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)
Jackson Murphy: Firefighters, police officers and ambulance workers are so inspiring, especially to kids. How did they inspire you to make this show?
Craig Gerber: My grandfather was a police detective in New York City in the ’60s, so I had that connection to first responders. Obviously first responders have always been around, but in these past couple decades, we’ve seen how visible not only they are for what they do but the sacrifices they make, whether it’s the medical profession with COVID or even going back to 9/11 with firefighters and police officers. It was a group of folks I wanted to honor and pay tribute to — and also shine a light on what it must be like in one of those families.
JM: And one of the strengths of this show is the child-vehicle relationship. You have great pairings of characters with personalities.
CG: That was the other inspiration for the show. It really came from my youngest son who is 7 now, but when he was 3 he was obsessed with fire trucks. He would walk around in a fire chief outfit and carry around a fire truck like it was his best friend. I just thought to myself at a certain point, “Wow! How excited would he be if that fire truck came to life and WAS his best friend?! And they’d go on adventures together.” That sprung into Firebuds with the first responders angle. It became, “What if this boy and his best friend who’s a fire truck live in this cul-de-sac and on one side of them are children of EMTs and on the other side of them are children of police officers? And when their parents go out to fight real emergencies, they team-up together to go out in their neighborhood and try to help their friends — rescuing them or helping them out with a problem?”
JM: And you give the vehicles arms so they can play ping-pong, which is awesome!
CG: How great is that? I wanted to do all the wish fulfillment. There have been other shows, believe it or not, that have talking vehicles. And I always wanted to provide something that folks haven’t seen before. We really spent a lot of time on the design of the vehicles to separate them from other vehicles that are out there. Obviously robotic arms coming out is a big thing. It also helps them come across as more human. We do a lot of squash and stretch with the vehicles to make them feel more organic — it’s almost like a vehicular person. We made their windshield wipers the eyebrows. We did a lot of exploration of where to put the eyes. We put the eyes everywhere. What we determined is: the windshield is the most appealing place. BUT we made full eyes with eyelashes that blink and we separate all the windshields to create different eye frames. We wanted to really make vehicles that stood on their own. And that also goes for the characters.
JM: There’s an attachment to the Cars characters (your cousin over at Disney)… Do you remember when you were young and you were playing with toy cars — giving them names, voices and the ability to do crazy things that now you can put into these characters?
CG: I do. I had a fire truck that I loved. And weirdly… and this is the first I’ve actually thought about this until you asked this very question… I had a supermarket truck that I thought was the most awesome thing in the world, from some old defunct midwestern supermarket. I haven’t put in a supermarket truck [into the show], but we have plenty of food trucks. They have a lot of personality. We meet one, Chef Fernando, voiced by Oscar Nunez (from The Office and many other things). And we also have a southern food truck named Chef Fran who will pop-up later in the season.
JM: You mentioned squash and stretch. I feel like I noticed that in a sequence with a train, which moves VERY fast. That’s some of the fastest movements I’ve seen in children’s television animation.
CG: (laughs) That’s hilarious. Part of the reason we wanted that train to move that fast was because we wanted to sell the danger of the police car that’s stuck on top of him, taking him away off into the sunset, and setting up our rescue for that episode. One of the great things about CG animation is that you can create very realistic-looking vehicles: chrome, metallics and speed. We’ve been trying to deliver all the vehicular goodness that we enjoyed when we were kids and had that Hot Wheels track. The goal was: how fast can we get these cars to go? That’s carried over to Firebuds. (laughs)
Craig Gerber
JM: There’s a couple things I like about the episode with art thieves. The first is the puns, like Vincent Van-go.
CG: It’s like a hobby for the crew to come-up with all these puns. There are more car puns in our show than probably all the Cars movies put together. We really have a ball with them. In that episode, there are four posters on the outside of that museum, and each of them is a different car pun artist name. And there’s a painting of a vehicle done in the style of the artist. And you only see it for a couple seconds! But the designer had a great time doing it. And it’s one of the things that makes it really fun for all of us. What new car pun can we come-up with?
JM: One of the other aspects I like is: we have these thieves and they make their presence known to all of the Firebuds. Sometimes the art thieves like to sneak in. They don’t want to be known. They’re just getting themselves out there: “Here we are! We are going to steal the painting!”
CG: (laughs) It’s funny you mention that. That was something that came-up in development. We wanted to have thieves and villains that kind of come out and say, “Hey, look at me! Catch me if you can!” It’s a fun way to do it. Every once in a while maybe we’ll have a mystery. But most of the time we want these villains to be a lot of fun and the type of villains kids enjoy watching even though they’re bad folks and get their comeuppance in the end.
JM: And one of the other things I noticed is: the adults and the adult vehicles, as the episodes go on, really start to open up to the idea of the children and the child vehicles helping out. Adults opening up to the idea of being able to trust kids is a very strong theme.
CG: And that’s intentional, and there are a couple reasons for that. Even though this show is fantastic and involves talking vehicles… we wanted to show these kids of first responders learning how to become heroes. They start out in one place, and even though the series is episodic, we wanted to watch them grow and get better at what they do. Their dream is to become first responders like their parents, so we wanted that idea to play out over the course of the show. They do get better. Part of that is the parents responding to it, “Wow! You really showed me something.” Another reason for doing that is the idea that kids, in many ways, are like little adults. They have a hard time controlling their emotions, although there are many adults that disprove that idea. Kids generally are like little adults and if you treat them with that kind of respect, you can get better results in terms of how they behave. Let’s meet kids where they are, see what they can do, and help them become better, but at the same time recognize they’re little [adults].
JM: Sofia and Elena are role models to so many children (many now growing up). What do you think those characters would think of the Firebuds? And I know Sofia and Elena came together at one point. Would they ever interact with the Firebuds?
CG: (laughs) What a great question! I think Sofia would fit right in with the Firebuds. There’s a lot about Sofia’s natural empathy and compassion for others that fits what the Firebuds are all about and what the show is about thematically. The show is about the spirit of community, the importance of volunteerism and thinking about others before yourself. And it’s about these kids that have this can-do attitude that, even though that may not be ready, they’re going to try to rescue anyone anywhere. Sofia is just like that. Elena is too, to a degree. But Elena would be older than them, so she’d probably look at them like her sister Isa and be like, “Okay, you’re trying but you got a little ways to go.” But Sofia would be right there on the fire truck with them.
JM: And what would you say to the kids and parents who are gonna be watching Firebuds — the children awed by first responders and the parents who see this attachment? What do you want them to take away from Firebuds?
CG: One of the things I love about doing animation for children and families is you can incorporate these very positive messages that kids and adults can take away from the show and use in their lives. They become shows that you can watch together and in some ways discuss. “What was the point? What message can we take away?” It’s a Disney show and has all the great characters you expect from Disney. Every episode is emotionally compelling. Hopefully you want to know what’s gonna happen next — but still fun and entertaining. AND in this moment in time the idea of doing something for the sake of your community and for someone else (maybe making a small sacrifice)… that concept and theme is really important. I hope parents will want their children to be exposed to that kind of generosity of spirit. And also… some guidelines about not getting too close to fire… helping out folks if there’s a blackout. Safety tips for your life.
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