Hamish Steele is the creator of Dead End: Paranormal Park, a new animated comedy horror series premiering this Thursday June 16th on Netflix. The show is based on his popular DeadEndia graphic novels, about two teens who work at a terrifyingly exciting amusement park. The charming and talented Steele shares what makes Dead End a scary good time. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: The series is based on your DeadEndia graphic novels, with these specific characters. Were there amusement park stories from your childhood that kind of influenced what you did with the graphic novels and this show?

Hamish Steele: Yeah. I only said this three or four days into our writers room… every birthday I went to this theme park called Chessington World of Adventures. My birthday is in mid-October, so it was always made up to be Halloween-y and spooky. So to me, theme parks and horror have always been synonymous. And my mom used to always decorate the house like full-blown Halloween. She’d changed all the bulbs in the house to be orange and purple and go all out, which is very unusual in the UK in the ’90s. Halloween was very much an American thing for a while, but she loved it.

JM: That is cool. It’s a fun time of year, and you present a fun show and characters we can all relate to, including Barney and Norma. They have a bit of a competitive nature towards each other in the first episode as they’re vying for a job at this amusement park. What do you like so much about their dynamic and how we’re gonna see that evolve over this season?

HS: They’re already friends when the comic books begin. And one of the changes we made to the show was: it’s really fun to watch this relationship bloom. They’re ultra competitive in the first episode and by the end they’re best friends forever. It represents a lot of the friendships I’ve had where maybe we seem quite different on a surface level, but we fully [are great] together. They’re both quite… I wouldn’t say broken people, but they’ve definitely got issues that the other one complements pretty well.

JM: The theme park comes from this actress and entertainment icon, Pauline Phoenix. Is she inspired by Dolly Parton? That’s who I immediately thought of.

HS: (laughs) My lawyers have to say “No.”

JM: (laughs)

HS: But yeah. It’s definitely a Dollywood… but haunted and gone crazy. I also don’t think Pauline is as good as Dolly. I will say that.

JM: Whoa!

HS: But in later episodes we explore her career a little bit more and she’s sort of part Dolly Parton, part Jane Fonda and “Barbarella”-y kind of things. We threw every movie diva or icon or a B-movie star into this one character. We can use her for any way we want, basically.

JM: Okay. Who are some of the entertainment icons who inspired you when you were young?

HS: Good question. One of my problems when making the show is that I have a real love of real niche B-movies / ’70s horror. There’s this one actress called Jessica Harper, who was in Suspiria, Shock Treatment and Phantom of the Paradise. They were all massive flops, but they’ve all become cult movies. I’m a bit obsessed with her. I call that trilogy “Harper’s Bizarre”, because they’re all movies starring Jessica Harper that are bizarre. There were moments when I was talking to Netflix and I’d be like, “Just like in Suspiria!” And they’d look at me like, “Are kids gonna get a reference to a 1970’s Italian horror movie?” And I’m like, “Ugh… they’re gonna have to!” (laughs) No, but we also reference Jurassic Park and much more well-known… but there are deep cuts from the things that inspired me.

JM: You’ve got Pugsley the dog, voiced by Broadway star and Tony nominee Alex Brightman, of School of Rock: The Musical and Beetlejuice. What impresses you about what he’s able to bring to this very unique role?

HS: I’m sure a million people say they’re his biggest fan but in making the show I’ve definitely become his biggest fan. He was so funny. We were auditioning and casting people in March 2020. He came to the callback and was so funny and so charming. Pugsley has a little bit of a demon possession problem, so we are able to hear both his natural voice and his Beetlejuice voice. And he killed the audition and he left the callback. And then I got a call from his agent saying, “I think Broadway is shutting down this week.” I was gonna go see Beetlejuice in the summer to see him. But all of that came crashing down.

Obviously, it was a really really sad and scary time for actors. Being able to throw a lifeline to people, especially theater actors — who knew when that was gonna come back? Since making the show, I actually went and saw Beetlejuice. I went to the re-opening night. I got to see it all in person. The last time he was Beetlejuice, we hadn’t made a show together. He’s so good at [voice acting].

JM: So what are your thoughts on mascots and giant characters at parks? Do you think they’re funny or creepy?

HS: (laughs) Well… not to spoil Episode 2 too much… but I think they can be both. They can be a little misunderstood. They’re definitely creepy, but you have to remember there’s a real person in there, so don’t be too touchy feely or push them away with violence. Quite a few of our cast [members] actually have worked in theme parks. A few of them have had to scare people at Halloween events. A few of the scripts hit quite close to home. I like a mascot. It would be a dream come true if one day we could get a Pugsley mascot somewhere — at the Netflix park, if there ever is one.

JM: I was gonna ask you: if you were able to turn this show into a theme park how you would want it to be — a theme park attraction or an entire park? So we’re gonna start with the Pugsley mascot. Yes! What else would you want?

HS: It would have to be the Dead End house… a haunted house… scary for all ages but with an emotional core. (That’s what I like to think the show is.) I’m obsessed with not just the mascots but, like, the actors at Disneyland having to be in character the whole time. I remember thinking which one I’d want to be and I’d probably want to be Cruella de Vil because… you just get to be mean to children all day, which seems a lot easier than having to be permanently happy. I’d want some Pauline actors walking around being a little bit mean.

JM: Cruella de Vil is one of the Disney icons. I’m glad you said the reason you’d want to scare children is you think it’d be easier — not that you have this deep obsession of wanting to be cruel and mean to children!

HS: I do like children. I just remember being one and I remember being obsessed with horror. I love stuff like Goosebumps and Are you Afraid of the Dark? But I have two older brothers, so I saw a lot of things probably before I was supposed to. I got detention at school for saying that I’ve seen Alien 3, which to this day, I think is unfair. But I was explaining it in detail to some other kids, and I think they were getting a bit traumatized.

JM: One of the core themes of this series is “belonging”. I could really tell that. What does that theme mean to you — and how you wanted to use that as a foundation and a force on this show?

HS: A lot of cartoons and films are about the idea of “found family”, but I think that sometimes it feels like it’s sort of sprinkled on top as a way of justifying a bunch of characters being together. For us, it was such a core principle. For Barney’s situation, he’s accepted at home but doesn’t always feel like his family has his back and his family truly understands what he’s going through. So I think the importance of finding people who unconditionally have your back and support you no matter what is a right of passage for quite a lot of teens.

But the theme of belonging is also tied up in the kind of “coming of age”. Our characters are in their late teens and just working out what it means to be independent and choosing your home. I’m glad you pointed that out. For Barney, he runs away from home and kind of finds a home of his own. But then there’s Courtney, who desperately wants to get home. So all of these plot threads clash in the final episodes of what home and family actually mean.