Karissa Valencia is the creator, showrunner and EP of new Netflix family animated series Spirit Rangers, which premieres this Monday October 10th (Indigeneous Peoples’ Day). Three special kids become junior park rangers. Valencia is a Chumash tribal member. She celebrates Native American storytelling through the delightful characters, gorgeous visuals and effective themes of Spirit Rangers. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: You’ve been a part of a number of animated series, including Dora, The Chicken Squad and Vampirina. But Spirit Rangers is YOURS. It is your show. When did that opportunity open up for you to share this passion project with the world?

Karissa Valencia: It’s so funny looking back at my career and it’s all pre-school because I never expected to land in preschool. I really had my nose in the air about it, just thinking “That’s just for babies. That’s not good stuff.” I feel so fortunate for the career that I’ve had because it has definitely made me a stronger writer — approaching the preschool space and learning how to tap into the more emotional side and earnest side of preschoolers. It’s been really fun. Once I got over my nose in the air about it was when I first started with Chris [Nee], working on Doc McStuffins. One of the first scripts I read was called “Hannah the Brave”, and it was about this little girl who had cancer. I was floored that we could tell these types of stories to this audience. I was ravenous to learn more from Chris and how she approaches her preschoolers.

Karissa Valencia: At that time I had Spirit Rangers percolating and then I was like, “Oh my God, this is perfect for the preschool space.” It’s very much like Grimm’s Fairy Tales with all these fables with universal lessons. I had the idea in 2019. I wrote-up a two-page document and then didn’t know who to share it with because it meant so much to me. It was my first big pitch. Who am I going to share it with? And it was Chris. She just got her Netflix deal and I knew she was somebody who had felt othered before and isolated at times. I knew that she would get it, though she’s not indigenous. She would understand where I was coming from and why I was being so precious about it. She loved it. She bought it the next day as a development pilot and we’ve been working together since then.

JM: That’s awesome. I spoke with her last summer and at the time she said your show was “gorgeous”. It’s cool to have sophisticated material in programming for young kids. Even though it’s mature, they will be able to pick up on it.

KV: I was really empowered by Netflix to not shy away from anything, which was awesome. I had worked at Nickelodeon and Disney. They clearly have brands and therefore boundaries and parameters. With Netflix they’re creator driven: “Do what you need to do.” They supported me the whole way. It’s been really cool… I hired an all Native writing room. And while we are so similar in so many ways, we’re also so different. Those were the best surprises. We got together and talked about what it was like growing up as a Native kid and the joys and really hard days. All of our experiences were so different. We combined all of that and put it in the Skycedar family and all of these characters. Those discussions brought out the best in the show. So glad for it.

JM: Yeah, I read they’re your “Native Avengers”, as you called them.

KV: Yes! (laughs)

JM: You assembled them to bring-in that authenticity. What I love is that you combine these memories of going to places like national parks, that we treasure… with stories that we’ve known about for decades. AND so many families treasure animated characters from TV series. You combine all of that into a really sweet show with three great lead characters.

KV: Oh my gosh. I love that, Jackson. That’s a good way to put it. (laughs)

JM: Thank you. Tell me more about your goals for Kodi, Summer and Eddy, including their transformations into animals.

KV: Kodi, Summer and Eddy are the heroes I wish I had when I was a kid — watching all my favorite cartoons. The transformation sequence is so amazing. The music is great. We had Native composers and producers on it. Partnered with Dimond and Kooman from Vampirina. They created this amazing catchy song. The transformation between human and animal has been trivialized in other works in Hollywood, and I’m just so happy to bring it home and destigmatize what it means and put it in the driver’s seat with a Native creative team behind. In my tribe, we believe certain folks have the ability to transform. That’s where this all started for me: going to one of my bear ceremonies in my tribe and watching those dancers honor and respect the animals. It all clicked. “There’s Kodi!” I was thinking about other animals that are important to us.

The kids have this ability to live in the modern space (which was important to me). We get to see them take care of their land and place in a modern space as junior park rangers. But they also have the ability to connect with their culture in a deeper way. They get to transform and see that that thunderstorm is actually a family of thunderbirds. They connect a little bit more to our environment and nature. That’s a very indigenous philosophy. It’s cool to see it in this Sailor Moon-style transformation.

JM: Weather is such a key element of your show. When I was very young, I had a little bear named Mr. Tormenta, who I would have if there was a thunderstorm that came by. How has weather had an influence on you and this show and these characters?

KV: It’s funny you mention that because it definitely shows I am a Southern California girl. There’s no snow in hardly any of the episodes. I didn’t grow up seeing that. It was always the sun. The sun is very important to us. It’s always summer in Xus National Park. The weather was cool to show off from an animation side. Giving this challenge to Superprod, who are so talented and fantastic. We’ll have episodes about thunderstorms, floods, and heat waves. It’s a really cool way to personify what that looks like in the spirit form. It’s been really fun to give it a character, essentially. When kids are experiencing those really hot summer days, they might be thinking, “I wonder if Sunny is really close to the park right now. He needs to go back. How do we help him?” Building that connection more is really exciting.

JM: Every voice actor matching up with the character sounds and feels right, which isn’t always the case.

KV: Thank you for saying that because the casting process was one of the hardest things. A search to find out Spirit Rangers especially… I’m so grateful to Netflix for supporting me with the resources to make this a country-wide search to find the right kids for the job. The Native talent is still growing. It might not be here in Los Angeles right now, so we gotta look for it and create it. For Kodi… I really wanted a little kid that sounded like a bear cub. I didn’t know what that meant until I heard it in Wačíŋyeya [Iwáš’aka], who sounded a little bear cub but lived in the middle of nowhere on one of the more poor reservations in South Dakota, two hours away from anything. Netflix could have said, “Pick somebody else. This is too hard. I don’t know how we’re gonna record him.”

But they did not. They built him his own studio and then sent it to him so he could go to work every day, and now we have another indigenous actor in our fold because of that support. It’s been an incredible collaboration, and now we have these amazing, talented kids that have grown into their confidence and they’re working on other stuff. It’s been really awesome to see that this isn’t just the only show they’ll be in. It’s just gonna catch fire and keep going.

JM: Yeah. And that’s amazing they built the studio. They care so much about the quality of the product and who they want to work with.

KV: And Wačíŋyeya is now spoiled — if he goes to any other studio he’s gonna be like, “Where are you sending my trailer?” (laughs)

JM: One of the themes of your show is trying something new. [In your case] Creating an animated series was something new!

KV: This is a show with a lot of firsts. I tried to really indigenize our production, which does not really adhere to a production schedule, but we made it work. One of those things was making sure that before we even started, we had to get the blessings of the tribes that I wanted to base the family off of, and that took a few weeks. “We have to ask them.” For so long, Hollywood would make stuff about us without us, and I didn’t want Spirit Rangers to fall into that same trap. So we invited these other tribes in, and they gave their blessing (the best day ever) and have been collaborators ever since.

When we were working on the underscore, my composer [Mike Pettry] and I were trying so many different sounds and none of it was sounding right. And he knew what we needed. It’s not in a library we have right now. We need to make it, which was recording singers from my tribe and putting their voices in the series. We stopped everything, invited my community singers down to L.A. They had a big day at EastWest Studios, recording in the studio Barbara Streisand was in. They were nerding out and having a great time. It was so beautiful. That saved the music and their voices were in the score.

JM: One of the episodes I watched is about dreams and everyone having the same dream. You show this theme of everyone being connected. This animation community… is so connected and so close. How do you feel about all of that now after creating this series — feeling connected with everyone?

KV: That’s a good question. First of all, I love our animation community. I’m a first-time showrunner and had so many people take the time to chat with me and give me pointers — taking me under their wing, like Chris, Kent Redeker and Jorge Gutierrez. It’s so great to have their support. And the community on the show is this beautiful blend of first timers, newbies with their foot in the door — ready to prove themselves and show off what they can do… with these animation veterans who are sharing all their knowledge and making sure we’re growing and have this safe space to be creative. This community of us joining together has been the best energy to carry us through. The newbies are teaching the vets something new, and the vets are coming in and stopping us from putting our foot in our mouth. It’s this great combination. I went to Annecy this year, and it felt very much like my debutante coming out into animation society. It was really great to be surrounded by all those creatives and represent the preschool team.