On September 8th, fans of the Cars franchise from Pixar Animation Studios will be able to hit the road once again for a new short-form animated series, Cars on the Road.
Stars Owen Wilson and Larry The Cable guy both return to lend their voices to Lightning McQueen and Mater in the new series that leaves the town of Radiator Springs and heads out on a cross-country road trip to visit Mater’s Sister.
On returning to the voice of the fan-favorite tow truck, Larry the Cable Guy said “You know what, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, and just coming back and doing the voice has just been fantastic. I mean, when you go out and parents go to their kids, hey, you know who that is? That’s Mater. And they’ll come up, and they’ll look at me, and I’ll do the voice like, ‘woo-hoo! my name’s Mater like to-mater’ just the smiles on their face. I mean, it really is just one of the greatest franchises… I am so blessed and excited and happy just to be a part of it. It’s really awesome. So, doing this series is unbelievable. And it’s hilarious…I’m just so blessed to be able to do it. “
With the fun of a cross-country road trip, viewers can expect fun new adventures that take place as Lightning and Mater find themselves in unique situations throughout the series. You know, like a family road trip. “When I was eight years old, my family traveled from Ohio to San Francisco,” says Steve Purcell, one of the series’ three directors. “We moved across the country. And that trip stuck with me. I just remember every day was like some new adventure. Something new was unlocked or, you know, all these crazy roadside attractions that we would beg my dad to stop at along the way. That stuck with me. In creating this series and writing these stories, it felt like a great opportunity to create something that was sort of modular in that every stop along the way could be a totally new location, a totally new sensibility, and a totally new set of characters.”
Even though the series has three directors, all the episodes tie together beautifully. Mostly since all three – Steve Purcell, Bobby Podesta, and Brian Fee – have all been involved with the Cars franchise since the very beginning. “We all three go back to Cars,” says Fee, “So, it’s in our DNA. It’s in our blood. We were all in story on Cars. Bobby was also in animation. So, we’re all just so heavily rooted into these characters. It’s like these characters are part of our family and we all understand them, you know, on that level.”
Together, the group worked with Jake Monaco on the score for the series, but also on one particular adventure with Mater involving Trucks and quite the catchy tune. Director Bobby Podesta notes that music has always been a part of the Cars franchise, and Cars on the Road should be no different, saying “we still have people singing “Life is a Highway” or any of the songs from the first film. We wanted music to be part of this as well. For “Trucks” it all started with Steve writing a musical episode about Mater at this kind of fever dream truck stop and what would happen there. We (the directors) kind of all worked together, and he handed off some lyrics, and then I added some lyrics. Then we grabbed Jake, and it was an organic process where I would send Jake, like here’s musically what gets me excited, and here’s some inspiration. And we would send text messages back and forth, and we would send voice memos. So, it’s like me humming something or singing something, and he would send over a pass of music, and it was a very organic process. And lots of early mornings online literally looking at sounds in wave forms, and like what if we move the chorus here? I remember for “Trucks,” we said, well, what should the chorus be? And we’re like, “it’s a truck thing” that’s it. I want people to remember that ‘cause I remember music from when I was a kid and watching shows. I can still sing it. And that’s what we wanted. I wanted that experience for this audience.”
Producer Marc Sondheim took the moment to showcase how “Trucks” is a shining example of each director putting their own spin on the episodes they were looking after, adding “And I think if Steve had directed that episode, it might have been like a Monty Python meets, you know, some kind of funky musical and Brian might have done something different with it. And so, that was kind of one of the joys of watching each of these directors take an episode and craft it and spin it into their own.”
That means Mater had a part in singing the song, with Larry adding (jokingly, of course), “That’s one of the things people don’t know about me. I am kind of an operatic type of singer and Riverdance. I was in Riverdance for many years.”
With the first Cars having been released in 2006, the franchise is old enough in some states to qualify as an antique vehicle. Can anyone jump into Cars on the Road without having watched the previous entries in the series? “Absolutely, you can drop right in,” says Larry. “I mean, McQueen and Mater, they're a legendary comedy team. So yeah, you can start from the beginning if you've never seen it, it's these two friends and they're just going on this adventure. Absolutely. But then once you're hooked, which you will be, then absolutely you're gonna want to start from the beginning and see how it all progressed and how they came to be. But yeah, you're gonna start from the beginning just as Mater's going to see his sister and taking his buddy with him. So if you've never seen Cars anything, this'll be fun for you.”
Though all the vocal recordings for Cars on the Road were done over Zoom, Larry also said it was still fun to work with everyone once again, including Owen Wilson who returns as the racing superstar Lightning McQueen. “It's so fun to work with everybody, 'cause they let you throw stuff out if you want to say it,” the Cable Guy said. “Like, a lot of times I'll say I don't think Mater would say it that way, this is how I think Mater would say it. Well yeah, as long as you're on time saying what it means, then say it however Mater wants to say it. But I think the cool thing about Owen and I now, we've done so many of these, we literally become the character. I kind of know where Owen's thinking and where Owen's going by his inflections and he knows my inflections. So when he throws something out, I think he has that in mind in his head how Mater's gonna respond to that and he's absolutely right. When I'm doing my voices and Owen's script is in front of mine, when his line is in front of mine, I already know how Owen said it without even hearing it because I've worked with him so many times. I think we've really come to gel really good and it's so much fun doing it with Owen 'cause we both know each other so well by now with these characters.
Aside from seeing our favorite characters once again, many fans are on the lookout for those delectable Pixar Easter Eggs, and there are plenty to see…and hear! Producer Marc Sondheim revealed that every fan is always on the lookout for the Pizza Planet truck, and it makes an appearance in each episode of the series, but he has a personal favorite that is a bit more subtle. Sondheim said that “my favorite personally was the kind of the Harryhausen stop motion assimilation we did in ‘Dino Park.’ And that, to me, was fun to watch the animators kind of craft that and let the animation team and watch Steve kind of direct that. And just have fun with it and just all the hokages are really fun to kind of dig into and watch.”
Bobby Podesta says that eagle-eared viewers should sit through the credits, “Jake took our theme song and he crafted a different version of it for every single episode in the credits in the style of the show. And it’s a pretty amazing bit of music that’s in there. So, there’s something for you from the start all the way to the end.”
You can sit through the start and all the way to the end when Cars on the Road debuts as part of Disney+ Day on September 8th on Disney+.