INTERVIEW: It’s Christmastime: Beebo Style With “Beebo Saves Christmas”

INTERVIEW: It’s Christmastime: Beebo Style With “Beebo Saves Christmas”

November 29th, 2021

Jackson Murphy

Jojo Ramos Patrick is the director of the new one-hour animated holiday special Beebo Saves Christmas. It premieres this Wednesday December 1st at 8pm on The CW. Beebo is the lovable breakout star of the network’s live-action DC’s Legends of Tomorrow series. In this special, Beebo is now in a gorgeous hand-drawn world, teaming-up with friends and Santa Claus himself to save the holiday from a high-tech, artificial takeover.

Jackson Murphy: What are the animated holiday specials that stand out in your mind from your youth?

Jojo Ramos Patrick: Gosh. Well, (laughs) the first one that just popped in my mind… was the Clone High episode for Snowflake Day. Then there’s the Dradelstein — they have a little claymation clip and it’s probably the funniest thing ever. There’s so many.

JM: There are, and it’s so cool now that you get to jump into that world… with Beebo Saves Christmas, which is gonna have the superhero fan appeal as well as the family appeal. How did the idea of a hand-drawn, hour-long holiday special based on a very unique CG toy/wild character from a live-action superhero show emerge?!

JRP: (laughs) I ask myself the same thing. I just got a phone call one day and was invited in on this project. It took me a second to kind of really wrap my head around it because it’s… DC, which makes me think of comics, but it was a live-action TV show, but we’re doing a 2D animation Christmas special. “Oh okay! So let’s do this!” And it did take us a little bit to figure out what it was going to be, but once we started laying out the framework, it was just like, “Okay, we got this.”

JM: Good. And the special opens with a song, and it’s been in my head for days now.

JRP: Oh yeah. It’ll do that.

JM: It will do that. These songs are very good. Basically “Beebo” opens, and he sings, “It’s Christmastime, Beebo style.” What did you know right away that you wanted to represent about the holidays through Beebo and through this song and opening section?

JRP: Every first thing you think about Christmas [is] in that first part. And he says it in the song. He’s talking about candy canes and cookies and decorating the Christmas tree. It’s very quintessential Christmas. You can’t have Christmas without these things. And also just cranking up the cuteness.

“Beebo2”: Specials — “Beebo Saves Christmas” — Image Number: BSC101fg_0038 — Pictured (L-R): Ernie Hudson as Santa Claus and Ben Diskin as Beebo — Photo: The CW — © 2021 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

JM: He and all the characters are cute. And with “Beebo Saves Christmas”, he’s rounding up some pals and new friends. They gotta get Santa back in the swing of things and make Christmastime feel old-fashioned again for the new generation. Beebo really has an old-fashioned outlook on the charm on the holidays.

JRP: Yeah. He’s an old soul.

JM: He is. I like when he says, “You’ll come around, it’s been a while.” That’s a nice line. Do you feel like you have more of an old-fashioned outlook when it comes to the holidays?

JRP: I’m kind of game… I’m more of the mind of the other -bo’s that we have in the special. It’s funny because the antagonist kind of has his vision of Christmas, and when I was first reading the script, I was like, “He’s got a point. I’m kind of into that.”

JM: That antagonist — without getting into too much — we’ve got Chris Kattan as Sprinkles. And he’s an interesting character in that he brings up this idea of, “Is efficiency better?” And you go into that very well and present a couple different sides. As the director of a holiday special, what do you think? Do you think, Jojo, that efficiency is better? And how did you see that as you were making this special with your team?

JRP: As far as Christmas goes, I’m sure there’s the days counting down — the days right before Christmas, you’ve got this deadline. I’m sure doing everything as efficiently as possible is very helpful, but it’s also good to slow down and take in the season. As far as the special goes, we definitely ran into some instances where we really had to be thoughtful about what we were making. You set-up the initial look and feel of the show and you’re constantly finding the middle ground of super limited animation and full animation with a more complicated design. We kind of found our stride, but then we get to these songs… “If we continue in this fashion, we will never finish this special because there’s so many incidental characters that we’d have to design and animate.” As well as backgrounds we’d have to create.

“Beebo3”: Specials — “Beebo Saves Christmas” — Image Number: BSC101fg_0080 — Pictured (L-R): Keith Ferguson as Fleabo, Yvette Nicole Brown as Turbo, Ben Diskin as Beebo, Chris Kattan as Sprinkles, Kimiko Glenn as Tweebo — Photo: The CW — © 2021 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

So… the beauty of the songs is: you can kind of go nuts and change the rules completely. Because it’s a song, once it’s over, you’re back in the real world. There’s one song in particular, the Santa and Beebo song they’re singing in the (what we call) Snowbucks. We took a lot of liberty to… take a page out of UPA and… I was looking at a lot of imagery from the Mr. Magoo Christmas special that UPA did. We’re a Christmas special: let’s get in the Christmas special tradition. And we completely changed the style and simplified it a lot. It made it possible to get it done, and when it was all put together, it really blew my mind. I’m really excited for people to see this song.

JM: You’re right that you change the rules when it comes to these songs. I was gonna specifically ask you about the Santa/Beebo Broadway-style musical number that you’re talking about, which is really great. It has these cool, free-flowing rhymes. When you got into this, were you surprised about how the songs were going, in terms of the lyrics and beats to them?

JRP: Yeah. When I was first handed the script and all the lyrics were there… I’m just the visual person. When it came to the music, I was like, “Oh this is completely… I can’t picture any of this — what it’s gonna sound like.” And we had two really amazing composers, and I think they both knocked it out of the park. Instantly earworms. They sent the rough tracks, and it was just them at a piano, and it was so catchy. We just got to build off of that.

JM: I think families are gonna love these songs. These characters are so warm and they’re so colorful. Beebo is especially lovable. The way you’ve created the colors: what went into some of that process?

JRP: When I was getting to know where Beebo came from in the world of “Legends of Tomorrow”, my first impression was that: This is a toy that’s created… there’s a TV show for kids somewhere in the “Legends of Tomorrow” world and it’s very toy-etic and they’re making toys of it. And I grew-up on those shows, like “Care Bears”, “My Little Pony” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, so I really dipped into that and… made Beebo really cute. Just like making an 80’s Saturday morning cartoon show with the bright colors and the giant eyes and the cuteness.

“Beebo4”: Specials — “Beebo Saves Christmas” — Image Number: BSC101fg_0068 — Pictured (L-R): Ben Diskin as Beebo, Kimiko Glenn as Tweebo, Ernie Hudson as Santa Claus, Yvette Nicole Brown as Turbo and Keith Ferguson as Fleabo — Photo: The CW — © 2021 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

JM: And speaking of ’80s: somebody from the iconic Ghostbusters franchise is in this. Ernie Hudson voices Santa. Was he on your Wish List, Jojo?

JRP: I mean… he wasn’t, but he was an amazing surprise. I got an email of, “Here’s who we’re thinking of doing voices.” And I’m looking at it and was like, “There’s no way we’re getting these people, right? This isn’t real.” And then it was real. Ernie Hudson did an amazing job. Beautiful voice. Loved his singing. And he brings so much warmth to the character, too.

JM: He’s gonna go right up there on my list of favorite Santas in TV or Film. He does a terrific job. Yvette Nicole Brown’s very good too. Families AND “Legends of Tomorrow” fans will love this special. How is Beebo a superhero to you — after your entire experience of making this special?

JRP: Unico was a comic book character from Japan way back when, and in the ’80s Sanrio made two movies featuring Unico. And he’s this little tiny… more head than body. He just runs around and wants to be friends with everybody. In one of the movies, he defeats the villain by just asking to be his friend. (laughs) It’s one of my favorite scenes. I see Beebo as so saccharinely sweet and that sweetness can get him into trouble, but it can also get him out of trouble. He’s a super cute superhero.

JM: He is. After watching this special, I think based on the characters and the look you and Warner Bros. Animation have created and the entire vibe of this — I believe there can be a follow-up, half hour weekly series with Beebo and all these characters in this hand-drawn world. Do you see that? Is there already something in the works?

JRP: I think you are totally right on the nose. A Beebo show… could totally work out. I wish I could just walk into Warner Bros. and be like, “Hey, let’s start doing this.” But it’s kind of up to them. (laughs)

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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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