Disney Junior animated series RoboGobo — about the rescue pets who rescue pets — makes its Disney+ debut on Tuesday April 1st. Creator and EP Chris Gilligan shares what makes this show so special, along with stories about working on two timeless stop-motion features. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity. Images Courtesy: Disney)

Jackson Murphy: When you [came up with the core concept], you must have thought, “Wow, this is a perfect hook.”

Chris Gilligan: It was lightning striking. I was thinking of a hero show. I was thinking of something to do with rescue and then, yeah, that just kind of popped and it was like, “Wow, okay, yeah, this could be something.”

JM: So what are the steps that it takes from there to making the show a reality? What’s the first thing you know you got to take from that concept to make this show?

CG: I call something like that the nugget. You harness that. Then you expand from that and you’re always true to it. It’s like a touchstone. So you start with that. You start thinking about characters. You start thinking about the world. You put it all together in a pitch. I like to do one piece of artwork that sort of encapsulates it. It kind of tests the idea. If you’re starting to get into a bajillion sketches and stuff like that, it’s probably too complicated. You kind of synthesize it, you pitch it, and then you hope people like it, and that’s what happened.

JM: I think families are really going to get into this. Kid inventor, Dax, adopts these pets, and they become these heroes. I love the pet adoption aspect of this. It really comes through in what you do with the core of this show.

CG: Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, it’s an important thing in terms of making sure that these animals find a home. But what was fun with this, keeping him as an inventor… In the story, his dad’s a vet. So he gets not one, not two, but he gets five pets, and they’re all very, very different. And his mom is an inventor. So he puts these two loves together and he finds that with these pets, there’s an aspirational aspect to them, so that the bunny can become a super rabbit. The puppy can become a super dog, etc.

JM: And was it difficult deciding which pets… which animals were going to be the core five?

CG: We went through a bunch of different permutations. At one time there was a goldfish that was one of the heroes, which was kind of fun, but we wound up making that another character. All in all, the idea was to have a disparate group. It wasn’t going to be all dogs, all cats, all aardvarks. It had to be a variety so that we could play with the conflicts and contrasts within the team, within the family, so that we could play with stories where they’re working together as a theme, or this general sort of gelling as a team and a family at the same time.

JM: After watching a couple episodes, I can tell how tight of a family this is.

CG: Oh, cool. I’m glad to hear that.

JM: That theme of working together, of course, going after your target audience of preschool kids and elementary school kids. That’s such a wonderful theme to share with them.

CG: Oh, absolutely. The show in and of itself is sort of an entry point for superhero IP. It’s like toe in the water for this kind of world. So for preschool, working together is an important theme to play with. Family superhero kind of works directly for that. But another important aspect was developing empathy. And we wanted to make sure that while these guys are doing hugely heroic things (they’re up against ridiculous villains who are always throwing a monkey wrench literally into things), their goal is always to rescue a pet. And there’s always some sort of emotional learning while there is fun to be had.

JM: And also showcasing technology. Like you said, these pets are transforming into these robots. They’re so tall!

CG: You bring up a really good point. Even sort of visually. Dax is their leader, obviously, and also their caretaker. When they’re pets, he’s bigger [and] they’re smaller. So it’s very clear that he’s somehow a kind of a parental figure. When they’re in their suits, they’re bigger than him, and that’s an aspirational part of it. But still, he’s leading the team, even though they are all superpowered at that point. But when you say the technology… his mom is the city planner. So if you look at the Metro Pet Island, which is the home where all the stories take place, there’s the city side, which she essentially has created the cool tube system and all the different tiers, all the ecosystems, etc. Dax has got a ‘robo’ in front of everything he’s got. So he’s got this cool robo arm. It launches these robo discs that turn into the robo suits. They fly a robo rocket, etc. It’s pretty fun tech. I think, hopefully, kids will really enjoy it.

JM: This generation of Disney Junior content — You worked on “T.O.T.S”. You worked on the “Spidey” show. Big hits. What do you think it is about this generation of Disney Junior programming that is speaking to so many families?

CG: Disney set that bar from inception. It was always out there pioneering… bringing all the great new innovative ways of looking at animation. But to speak specifically to this, I’d have to say that what they always get right is heart. You could easily put style over content. You could easily just go for the flash, bang, boom of it. They always go for character. It has to be authentic. And it always has to touch you emotionally. I think kids respond to that. I think kids get when a character is sincerely acting or behaving in a way that they can relate to. And so that’s always embedded. No matter what the shenanigans are… no matter what the kookiness is, you have to come back to someplace emotionally authentic. And I think Disney always consistently gets that right and inspires that.

JM: I have to ask you about your animator work on two iconic stop motion animated films. “James and the Giant Peach”, directed by Henry Selleck, and “Frankenweenie”, directed by Tim Burton. Legends. Excellent films. Those must have been amazing experiences.

CG: Lucky is what I would say. Right time, right opportunities. Henry… talk about top of an art form. That was fresh off of “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. That was the film after that and had just built this destination for stop-motion animators. And I was lucky enough to get a chance to work on that film. Stop-motion is kind of a small gang of crazies. Then years later, some of the same people who had worked on “James and the Giant Peach” were looking again for animators, and the timing was right. I guess it was around eight months in London. “Frankenweenie”, the half hour live-action short, was always an amazing and inspiring little nugget. And Tim had always wanted to do something more with it. To have that opportunity to work on that was great. Stop-motion’s very physical. It’s kind of like miniature live-action. One frame at a time, very precise, very straight ahead. I absolutely love it as an art form.

JM: Nice. How would you say animation is a hero to you and to the millions of people of all ages who love it?

CG: When I was about four, I kind of knew what I wanted to do with my life. And it was animation. I remember doing early flip books and just that sensation of bringing something to life, but also this ability to go into a fantastical world where you can learn emotional storytelling or just escape. And I would have to say that animation always allows for that. Animation is a medium, not a genre. So no matter what genre it’s used for, it is always somewhere transportive. And I think that’s super important for storytelling and for an audience to be able to connect to that. I think that’s why people respond to it. Probably always will.