February 15th, 2022 
Jackson Murphy 
Nickelodeon’s newest animated series is based on a popular comic and book franchise from Lincoln Peirce. Big Nate, about a 6th Grader ready to take on the world… or at least his middle school… premieres this Thursday Feb. 17 on Paramount+. Executive Producers John Cohen and Mitch Watson discuss how the show makes the grade. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)
Jackson Murphy: John, we’ve followed each other on Twitter over the years. You’ve been so passionate about the work you’ve done in the world of animation. What got you excited about Big Nate?
John Cohen: This is something that is very, very special to me. I’ve been a huge fan of Lincoln Peirce’s comic strip and books for years — and had reached out to him a while back. We started talking about how to translate Big Nate into an animated series. What we found as we talked to people at the different studios is that a lot of people could really only envision it in live-action. They kind of saw it almost like the original Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies. But something that was very important to us was that these are cartoon characters.
John Cohen: They’re like The Simpsons or Peanuts. They don’t age. Nate is always in 6th Grade. And they have designs and a cartoon physicality. As an example, you wouldn’t bring Bart Simpson to life with a real human actor, or Charlie Brown. When we started talking to our friends at Nickelodeon (Ramsey Naito, Nathan Schram and Claudia Spinelli), they introduced us to Mitch and we knew that we had found the perfect person to partner with to bring this to life.
JM: The characters are fun to look at and get to know. And Mitch, how was it getting into the mindset of wanting to think like a kid when it comes to making this show?
Mitch Watson: Sadly, not hard for me. (laughs) That was partially why Ramsey Naito thought of me. She knows there’s many similarities between the character and myself, especially when I was in middle school. I kind of got the character right off the bat. The interesting thing is… the big issue with developing the character had always been [that] Nate, depending on how you read him, can come off as a jerk, like a little prankster jerk, basically. And I didn’t read him that way at all. I read him kind of how I think I felt in middle school, which was an insecure kid who just wanted to be liked really badly. And my way, just like Nate’s way, to be liked was to cause trouble. (laughs)
I got the character instantly and that’s how I approached him — a kid who is at that crossroads in his life. He’s not a child anymore, but he’s also not a teenager yet. He’s still in that place and he just wants people to recognize his awesomeness. And for whatever reason, they don’t. But he’s determined to make sure that they do. Most of the engines of the show are about that.
JM: I think that when we’re at that age in 6th Grade, we all want to find ourselves and see what we’re all about and try some things publicly in front of others to see if they work or don’t. You capture that. John, one of the secrets of any show is that when you have a character of a certain age, always those in real-life who are younger are going to be attracted to somebody who’s older — gonna be interested in learning about that life and lifestyle. How will those who are younger in age than those in 6th Grade relate to Nate and be surprised by him?
JC: It’s amazing. I’ve now shown the show to my daughters, who are 8 and 4. It plays comedically to them just as much as it does to me. It’s aspirational in the way you talk about. That sophisticated comedic sensibility speaks to everyone. At its core, it’s a story about a group of friends that are very, very closely knit. And they support each other. They all have dreams. Nate has a dream of drawing cartoons and playing in a band. Dee Dee is very interested in the performing arts and is obsessed with all things on stage. That is something that relates to people of all ages.
JM: Yeah, definitely. I screened the first episode, which is called “The Legend of the Gunting”. And Mitch, it has references to “The Breakfast Club” and James Bond. So you gotta be a big movie lover to put those in the first episode.
MW: Oh yeah. And then there will be more beyond that. I’m a huge movie fan. I’m a big horror movie fan too. Some certain episodes definitely have a horror element to them. I always tend to do that kind of thing. I put little tidbits in there. There’s a lot of music in the show. We wanted the show to appeal to kids and adults as well. There’s gonna be a lot of stuff in there that kids are never gonna get. It’s gonna go right over their head. “The Breakfast Club”: they’re not gonna get those references. But their parents will. In every episode, we have music specifically from the ’80s and ’90s to evoke this nostalgia. The whole show was created that way… a lot of the aspects were to evoke a kind of nostalgia for the older Nickelodeon shows from the ’90s, when they were a little bit wackier / crazier / anything could happen.
Nate is obsessed with this group called The Time Disruptors, which are basically The Avengers, but it’s our version of The Avengers. They’re his favorite movie franchise. There’s an episode with that. There’s a lot of cool things all the way through.
Executive Producers John Cohen and Mitch Watson – and Jackson Murphy (center below)
JM: Cool. And you’ve got one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, Jack Black, in the first episode. In the Nickelodeon family for many years hosting and appearing on the Kids Choice Awards. John, how was it to bring in Jack Black? And his whole “Destined for Awesomeness” with his character [Brad Gunter] is very much like Po the Panda in Kung Fu Panda.
JC: Jack Black plays a fantastic character — a character that when Mitch had conceived him, we could only imagine Jack Black playing him. We were so lucky to have him be a part of it. And that’s a character you see in the first episode and plays a very important role in the series going forward that will be beyond the episodes that we’ve already dropped.
MW: I’ve known Jack since college. We were also in the same theater company together. I was there at the creation of Tenacious D. I had been waiting and waiting and waiting to call in that favor of, “Hey Jack!” When this part came up, it was perfect. I was like, “We’re all stuck at home during a pandemic and I know Jack is stuck at home going crazy.” So he was gracious enough to agree to do it when we reached out to him. When you work with somebody who you’ve known for a very, very long time who now happens to be a massive movie star, it’s very strange but also kinda cool because suddenly you’re back in college again and messing around. It was fun. I was really touched by the fact that he agreed to do it, because he’s busy. And he’s expensive.
JM: (laughs)
MW: But he was willing to do this as a favor for me. So that was great.
JM: Great. How was the reaction to the sneak peek during the [recent NFL] Wild Card Game? And there’s a cool moment in that five-minute clip where you do a flashback and you put that in a TV set (Nate thinking about cats). I love that detail.
MW: We do a lot of that! The reaction was amazing. Fantastic. YouTube is nuts with clips that have been pulled. [And on the show] There are three main styles: the CG style, which is our almost stop-motion / puppet style. The second style is directly taken from Lincoln’s books, which is the 2D style — whenever Nate draws something or has an idea. And then the third style is a cut and paste Terry Gilliam style. And that TV stuff you’re talking about is where some of that comes in. We’ll show retro versions of TV. The Time Disruptors are animated specifically in a Saturday morning cartoons ’80s style. A lot of people who work on the show are animation nerds and we have a lot of memories we’re playing with. We were very fortunate that Nickelodeon was cool with letting us do what we wanted to do. They would stop us if we went too far, which we did on occasion. For the most part, they were really great about backing us.
JM: And John, you’ve been a producer on some big family movies — Alvin and the Chipmunks, Despicable Me and The Angry Birds Movie. Through your experiences on those films and this show, what have you seen animation do for kids and for families — that power of animation?
JC: I think that animation is an opportunity to reach people everywhere in the world. The fact that you’re making something that is dubbed and translated into every single language and can play everywhere is a huge, huge opportunity and a huge responsibility. There’s a reach for animated shows and movies that a lot of times (when you’re doing something in live-action) does not play the same way and as broadly. Because you’re making something for a big part of the audience that is younger, there’s a huge responsibility to make sure that you are speaking to them and that you are inspiring them. I think about all the movies that I saw when I was a kid (middle school and below), and I think about the things that I learned or the theaters that I walked out of and I felt like I wanted to go do something or I could conquer a goal that I had. It’s a big opportunity, and they’re a privilege to be able to work on.
JM: Nice. You’ve had a great career. And you’re right that animation is inspiring to so many — all ages. I have to ask you the middle school wild story or funny observational detail that you had to put into the show.
JC: For me, the fact that as a middle schooler I was much more of a rule follower. I was not a prankster on the level of Nate. What I think is amazing is to see the way that the characters have their passions, personalities and interests — and they’re in a stage where they’re still forming. They’re discovering what they want to do. They’re finding their sensibilities. And it’s fun because you see all the different elements and in the world that help to shape who they become when they grow up.
JM: Very true. Mitch, how about you? Any detail from middle school that you were able to put into this?
MW: Yeah, the biggest one being the school itself. I went to a very run-down middle school. Very much like that. The rats would show up. We had rats. It was a free for all in some of the things that we did and the pranks that we pulled. And I was kicked out of Band. I was in the principal’s office quite a lot. Food fights. Quite a bit of things, quite honestly, from my middle school days have made it into the show. All that stuff works its way in one way or another.
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