Middlemost Post is a new animated comedy series that follows the fun adventures of Parker J. Cloud, Angus and walrus Russell as they deliver mail and meet some cool pals along the way. The show premieres this Friday July 9th at 7:30pm on Nickelodeon. Creator John Trabbic III and Executive Producer Dave H. Johnson discuss the most thorough aspects of putting “Middlemost” together… and all of it was done from home.

Jackson Murphy: When I was young, I watched Blue’s Clues and that gave me a love of mail. When did your love of mail begin?

John Trabbic III: Over the pandemic, that’s really when my love of mail happened because I was using Amazon so much. Having food delivered to my house was the rise of the delivery man.

JM: (laughs) It was! But did you have any love of mail before then to really get into one of the core themes of this show?

JT: I don’t think I have a love for mail. I just enjoy it.

Dave H. Johnson: You know you love mail, John! (laughs) Jackson, he stays at home. He gets his mail. He throws it in the air like a million dollars.

JT: That’s true. I record unwrapping videos of myself with my mail. (laughs) I just like mail.

JM: Who doesn’t? This core trio of characters is so fun: Parker J. Cloud, Angus and Russell the walrus. Dave, take me through some of the creation of these characters and getting involved with John on this.

DJ: John and I hooked up pretty early in the process. I was already over at Nickelodeon working on a number of different projects. His came across my path. I immediately went, “What is this?” in the nicest of ways. That core group was there. John and I got into developing the world, those characters, how they bounce off each other. From the get-go, we just wanted to make a very funny, heartfelt show. Very character-driven. It’s not the easiest one-liner pitch like most shows are. And we just kept saying, “You just need to see it. Just let us do it. You’ll get it.” And we were fortunate to get that opportunity, and we did a very fast development period. About nine months from beginning to end – from Pilot to greenlight. We’re still creating this world as we’re talking right now. It’s still an ongoing process – all from the luxuries of our homes.

JM: Wow. So John, through that process (and not a very long one) and doing everything at home, what has surprised you the most about bringing a new Nickelodeon animated series to life?

JT: It surprised me how connected people can get to this subject. It’s kind of far-fetched. But for some reason there’s a special vibe – I don’t know what it is about this show but – it has attracted so many good and talented people – and people that are passionate about it. I think most of the people, if you ask them, they’ll tell you that they look forward to waking up and working on the show. And that’s pretty surprising.

JM: Well I’m glad that people are invested in this show. I’m already invested after the first half-hour I’ve seen (“First Delivery” and “Chore or Less”). Angus is not only a friend to Parker, but he’s also a teacher. There’s a line in the first episode. He says, “You can’t win every fight.” Dave, how did you develop him to be this sort of teacher and guide to Parker?

DJ: For John and I, Angus was the tricky one but important one. It’s hard to do adult characters in cartoons and not make them kind of idiots. John and I both come from a place where we had a mentor in our life in one way or another. There’s not that parent but there is someone that can guide you, and the people we learn the most from are the people who didn’t pretend they had all the answers. For Angus, he didn’t really choose this. He does not have all the answers. He doesn’t have kids of his own. He’s probably wrong just as many times as Parker is, and that’s something we really wanted to create to show that adults make mistakes too. Adults don’t have all the answers. And that’s okay. But together you can figure them out if both are open to it. Angus came about that way – to find a character to be the adult in the room when there needs to be one, but he also likes to get into mischief and also go down the path a kid can go down.

JM: I also saw one of the shorts (“Challenges”) that was part of the Nickelodeon virtual upfront presentation earlier this year. So John, did you create the short episodes first before you got into the longer ones, or was it a simultaneous process?

JT: It was a parallel process. We were doing them both at the same time. The shorts came about at the very same time. We didn’t have a schedule to make separate time. It was kind of all at once.

JM: Wow. In “First Delivery”, there are a lot of obstacles that our main characters face as they try to deliver a letter. Dave, how was it coming up with some of those obstacles for Parker and Angus?

DJ: For a lot of stories you’re gonna see on our show, we like very simple concepts. That episode really is the epitome of this show. It’s as simple as just getting something from Point A to Point B and how many things can we throw at them? It’s a little bit of a throwback to older cartoons like “Looney Tunes”, where it’s simple physical gags. And for that we have great artists. A lot of that’s scripted and the ideas are there but it’s our artists and our directors that really bring that to life. When we first saw what they did with that, it really blew our minds. That’s when we knew, “Wow!” We can take a simple concept and make it feel so big. A lot of those obstacles came from the writers’ room and the artists. It’s kind of a group effort when we get down to that stuff.

JM: I like the look of the show a lot in terms of how you define the characters with the visuals and the colors – including the specific [shade of] purple for Russell. John, how was it for you doing that and trying to create a really nice, bright, fun animation landscape for the show?

JT: That’s always been kind of the secret sauce: Parker J. Cloud producing rainbows. We’ve always said if that was the tone of the show, visually, we’re like, “Let’s make these different neighborhoods.” It seems more relatable if you can think of the states: each one has its own feel and look. California looks different than Michigan. We tried to lean into that with color and characteristics. It felt totally right to have the rainbow and the cloud and the rainbow as our color palette for the world.

JM: Dave, what do you think, in terms of the elements of working on this series, were the middle and most difficult?

DJ: (laughs) Wow. The most difficult in general is that… we started production (day one) at home. That was difficult. We put an entire staff and crew together remotely. We have not met over 80-90% of our own crew that is doing this. That is difficult to find ways to stay connected. The middle would be… not being able to see the people that you used to work with. John and I spend a lot of time together on a box on a screen, rather than in a room together. There’s a little separation there that you miss for sure when creating a show and… at the same time, the crew doesn’t get a sense of John and I that well because we’re remote and we’re not there. The show is an extension of John and I. It’s our personalities. It’s what we bring to it. That part is probably the middle-most difficult part.

JM: Hopefully you guys will get together very soon as things are opening up more to [make] this series in person. But what an accomplishment you guys have been able to do at home. And John, because you’ve been in the SpongeBob world for several years and now you’re going into this show, how do you feel about this new family hour – TGIF, Friday nights with “The Patrick Star Show” and you guys with “Middlemost Post”?

JT: Man, it’s such an honor to be shown and premiered with such a franchise and iconic team such as the SpongeBob family. We don’t mind one bit being premiered with them. Hopefully the same type of viewers will find joy in our show as well. We’re absolutely excited to see it on TV and… for us to release the rainbow to the world.