“Doing ZOMBIES: The Re-Animated Series while we were shooting ZOMBIES 4 actually changed how I played Zed in the movie,” Milo Manheim revealed. The stars of the hit Disney Channel film franchise are back not only through the upcoming fourth installment but also via a new half-hour animated series, premiering June 28th. When A-Spen turns back time, the Seabrook High gang gets to restart senior year, leading to animated musical adventures that extend the fun of the film franchise. “The Re-Animated Series helped me bring the youth, light-heartedness, and humor back to Zed a little bit in the fourth movie. The situations we find ourselves in in the series are so absurd that we really just get to go there. There are no rules. You can stretch something in a weird way, and then the animators will edit it to how you record it. It's not vice versa, so there's no mold we need to fit.”
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“I really love cartoons so I'm just so happy that I get to be a part of one,” Meg Donnelly shared, who reprises the role of Addison. “I do a lot of weird voices and bits and stuff because I find that really funny. So being in the recording booth, there are so many times where Addison in the animated series is very me. She does really crazy random things that I feel like she wouldn't necessarily do in the movies that she does in the animated series, so that really excites me because she's really funny and kind of psychotic and I love it.”
Devoted ZOMBIES fans know that ZOMBIES: The Re-Animated Series isn’t the first time these characters have appeared in animation, with Addison's Moonstone Mystery set between the second and third films. “That was during the pandemic, so they sent equipment to our houses, and we were in our closets recording on our own,” Chandler Kinney shared, who returns as Willa. “This is really exciting because we were able to step into the studio in a physical location with people and be in person. This creative team is so brilliant, the writing is so good, it's so funny, and there was so much love packed into this. I'm really stoked for people to see it.”
“Some sessions, we'll do a couple of songs and then jump right into dialogue,” Kylee Russell explained about the show’s music. For the ZOMBIES films, recording the songs is one of the first steps in the process, often preceeding filming of those musical sequences by several months. However, since animation is crafted around a voice performance, the series had the luxury of being able to record songs and dialogue simultaneously. “It’s kind of nice because you get to sing favorite songs, and then you get to jump in and do the lines. It's just a very fun, full, packed day.”
“We've been doing it for almost two years now,” Milo Manheim concluded about the gap between recording dialogue and episodes getting released. Unlike on the films, where the cast get to be together for most of the shoot, for ZOMBIES: The Re-Animated Series, each actor only knows their own parts, so watching the show will be fresh and new for them. “It's gonna just be such a delight to see it come together,” added Chandler Kinney.
Addison, Zed, Eliza, and Willa are back in ZOMBIES: The Re-Animated Series, premiering June 28th on Disney Channel and June 29th on Disney+. Go deeper behind the scenes in our full video interview with Milo, Meg, Chandler, and Kylee.