The Fabulous Disney Babe
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KimPossible

This week, I'm talking with Robert Schooley of Disney Television Animation. He and his amazing team are working on KimPossible, a new Disney animated series for TV. I've seen a couple of episodes, and, honestly, it's the best thing DTVA's done since Darkwing Duck in my opinion. It has the artistic style of the Cartoon Network's Samurai Jack, but with solid, funny writing and likeable characters. The villain, Drakken, is great; think Freakazoid meets Brainiac. There's even a character (Wade) that reminds me of Doobie and, of course, a naked mole rat.

Disney's TV animation has, over the past couple of years, put out shows that (unlike the "Disney Afternoon" shows of the eighties and early nineties, which were all pretty much identical), look and feel almost completely different from each other. I was hoping I'd like Teamo Supremo, but it seemed to me to be another Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show, copying a style of a cartoon (For S&M it was Ren and Stimpy; for Teamo, it's Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls) without quite grasping the concept. Bill Justice tells the story about how Walt saw other studios working in limited animation and came to him about pushing the envelope of the style as an art form. The next year, Disney won an Oscar for Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom.

Fab: Where did KimPossible come from? How did you come up with the characters, the sidekicks, the villain?

Robert Schooley: We were coming off of Buzz Lightyear when we heard that the Disney Channel was looking for a new show aimed at their tween audience. We went to lunch and kicked around a few ideas, when suddenly Mark (Mark McCorkle, you may have seen him and Robert in their office in The Disney Magazine) said "Kim Possible! She can do anything" and I said, "Her partner's Ron Stoppable, he can't."

From there the show fell together really fast. We added Wade, their mysterious webmaster, soon after. Our basic decision was to simplify the overly complicated set up boys' action shows into something cleaner and more based on appealing characters. We wanted a female lead who is very sure and confident in action, yet human and vulnerable in "real life" situations."

Drakken came to life when we cast John DiMaggio from Futurama. He was initially a pretty standard mad scientist. But when we were recording the first episode with him and Nicole Sullivan, in the session we hit on the dynamic of her being the smarter of the duo and he being ever frustrated.

Fab: Can you explain the stylized animation and background ?

RS: We got hooked up with Chris Bailey who was coming off of Clerks. He brought in Alan Bodner, who had a lot of previous experience at Warner Brothers to art direct. After having done a lot of spin-off shows, our one request was to design it in a way that it can look like a great TV show, not like a watered down feature. We all liked a more stylized approach that would separate our show from the usual Disney TV look. Being a former feature animator, Chris was passionate about character designs that were elegant and animator friendly. He and Steven Silver, the lead designer, spent over a month refining the Kim design alone. We were thrilled where she ended up. Instantly appealing.

Also, we have reproductions hanging in our office of the classic silk screen Disneyland posters. We wanted backgrounds that evoked that strong simple graphic feel.

Fab: Any "in-jokes" you'd like to talk about?

RS: Mark and I appear in an episode called "Low Budget" as two very obnoxious yokels.

Fab: When does KimPossible air? Will there be any movies or video releases?

RS: We begin in early June. It will air in the Zoog Disney block on Friday, Saturday and Sundays.

The company, God bless 'em, views Kim as a potential "franchise character" (Synergy strikes again!) so lots of things are being discussed beyond the initial series run. One sure thing is a very elaborate website that will really enhance the content of the show each week.

Fab: What's the biggest challenge with the show?

RS: The structure of the stories are very tricky. Trying to balance a fun, fresh school story with a ridiculously outlandish villain story and do it all in 22 minutes. That, and figuring out how to get the words "Naked Mole Rat" into every episode so people know what Rufus is.

Fab:  Who is your favorite character and why?

RS: Love 'em all. Really. Ron because he's so flawed. Kim because she's cool. Rufus because he's cute. I do have a soft spot for Drakken though. We've been blessed with amazing actors playing our villains in our series. From James Woods in Hercules to Wayne Knight on Buzz Lightyear. We think John DiMaggio belongs in that company.

Here's some preview art from KimPossible:

(c) Disney

-- Fab

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-- Michelle Smith

-- Posted March 1, 2002