Speaker 0 00:00:00 <silence> Hi, and welcome to the Cosmic Cafe, the companion podcast for the cosmic circus.com. We have a very special double interview today with Steve Loder and Rodney Cloud from Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Enjoy.
Speaker 2 00:00:28 First of all, thank you both for being here. Um, I'm Ala Ruby. I'm a writer for the Cosmic Circus. Um, I'm really excited to, to chat with you, <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:00:37 Awesome. Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:00:39 Um, so can you tell me a little bit about yourselves, uh, first before we, before we start?
Speaker 3 00:00:45 Sure. Uh, I guess I'll go first. I'm, uh, I'm Steve Loder. I'm the executive producer of Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
Speaker 4 00:00:53 Uh, I am Rodney Cloud and the supervising producer on the show.
Speaker 2 00:00:58 Okay. Awesome. So, first of all, congratulations. I think I saw that the new trailer has like, I guess it's not new, but the trailer has like 8.4 million views and I'm pretty sure like a couple hundred of those were my daughter. So congratulations. Oh, that's awesome. On that. Thanks.
Speaker 3 00:01:13 Thanks to her. Thank you,
Speaker 2 00:01:15 <laugh>. Um, so, you know, I just wanna talk about the show a little bit. You know, what is Moon Girl in Devil Dinosaur? For folks who are not familiar with the comic book or who somehow haven't seen the trailer, you know, what, what, what is it about?
Speaker 3 00:01:29 Sure. Um, the show is about Luella Lafayette, one of the smartest characters in the Marvel universe. She's a 13 year old super genius. Um, and she creates this portal device, um, and unintentionally opens up a portal dimension and through it walks a giant red dinosaur named Devil Dinosaur <laugh>. So, naturally, when you have a giant dinosaur in New York City, you partner with them to fight crime to protect the Lower East Side. That's what I think every anyone that would get a giant red dinosaur would do clearly <laugh>. So she becomes New York's newest superhero, uh, defending the Lower East Side and, and just protecting everyone.
Speaker 2 00:02:09 Um, so, you know, what was kind of the inspiration to bring this to tv? Because what, you know, it's, it's been a comic book. Why this show?
Speaker 3 00:02:18 Um, okay. Well, you wanna take his one around <laugh>? Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 4 00:02:21 That's, that's you, you know, that's, uh, all thanks to Lawrence Fishburne. You know, it all started with him. You know, he's a big comic book guy, which, you know, a lot of people probably wouldn't suspect, but he saw this, uh, in, uh, this comic book store. And, uh, he is like, you know what? This looks like this needs to be done. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, we need to make a show out of this. And, uh, you know, he basically got in contact with Disney and he had his, um, in his partners producing partner from his company, cinema Gypsy, Helen Suland. They got together and got contact with Disney. And, you know, when you get a call from Lawrence Fishburne, you can take it <laugh>. And, uh, you know, they said, you need to do this, this needs to happen. And Disney also saw the potential in, uh, in the property and was like, yeah, let's, let's make this happen.
Speaker 2 00:03:09 Now. How did you, you know, how did you both kind of get introduced to it? Were you fans of it before? You know, was it that call from Lawrence Fishburne that you just, you know, you had, you couldn't say no to taking. Um, how did you find out about it?
Speaker 3 00:03:22 Well, yeah. Um, so I, I, I personally have a, a long history of strong female protagonist mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, I was a producer and director on Impossible. Yeah. Um, I directed and wrote, um, Tinkerbell and the Legends of The Never Beast. And Lawrence was familiar with my work and really enjoyed it and thought, oh, okay, you know, I really wanna make this, you know, a a a very strong female protagonist series with a really strong visual sense and tons of music. And he thought of me and said, oh, I think this, this guy might be a good guy for it. So we got in contact and almost immediately we had a, a shared vision of, of what the show should be like, um, with the same inspiration, because I grew up as a huge comic book fan as well. So we have a lot of references in common. Um, and yeah, once we had like a kind of a big discussion about where we, you know, wanted this series to go and what we wanted it to look like, I think we were just kind of off and running from that point on.
Speaker 4 00:04:24 Yeah. And then Steve just called me, that's how I <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:04:27 <laugh>,
Speaker 4 00:04:29 But I, yeah, I remember seeing the comic book in the comic store and I, yeah, I, I was, uh, familiar with it and, uh, being a comic guy and then getting the call that they're doing the show that, oh, yes, definitely. Let's get, let's get it cracking <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:04:45 Now, you know, you mentioned, uh, Steve, you mentioned the art, art style a little bit and, you know, I got to see, I think the first two episodes and it's like, it's so striking and so just, um, like so, so visually appealing. And I just wanna talk about figuring out, um, that art, like that style and, and what your inspirations were, you know, both of you. What, like what inspired this, um, the look of the show? What inspired, you know, just the animation style of the show? Because, you know, it seemed like a little bit of spider verse. I don't know.
Speaker 3 00:05:14 Absolutely. Yeah, I think that it's, it starts with the fact that both Rodney and I grew up in New York City mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and we grew up there at a time, uh, before gentrification kind of took over. So it was kind of the idealized of New York City where it was really creative and vibrant. Um, so a lot of the inspiration of the overall art style kind of came from that. And I'll, I'll speak to, to kind of the overall graphic look of it. And where we kind of went with that is we were inspired by New York artists, the Andy Warhol and the screen printing process and Basquiat. And also we looked at a lot of the murals that were up in New York City at the time. But I think a primary inspiration for both of us was graffiti artists. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because we were kind of also growing up around the time when graffiti artists were really turning into artists and, and being recognized as, as true artists of New York City. So I think a lot of the visual inspiration came from that.
Speaker 4 00:06:22 Yeah. And we really wanted to lean into just representing New York visually mm-hmm. <affirmative> in the most authentic way and the most cool way because, you know, New York is in certain instances and shows are like really clean, but, you know, it's not clean. It's gritty, it's got edge and texture. And we also were inspired by just the, the graphic style of comic books. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you see the, the, with talking about Andy War on the screen printing, and you see that kind of offset thing going on with the textures and color blocks and, and also that it's a comic book. How do we wanna represent the comic book? So you have a nice inky line style and graphicness of the characters. So you have that fine balance of the comic book aspect of the characters, and a little bit of that old school look with the backgrounds. And you kind of have it working together, but not competing with against each other.
Speaker 2 00:07:18 Now, you know, in addition to the art, the music is just amazing. And I have a bunch of questions about the music. Um, can you talk about, you know, kind of the process of pairing it up with the art on the show? You know, do you, do you know the music beforehand that you wanna do? Um, you know, I, I have a lot of questions about that, but I'll just start with that <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:07:37 Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We are, we're excited to talk about the music. It's such an important part of the show. Um, our music executive producer is the legendary Rafael Sadik, um, Rafael's career has ranged from his group, Tony, Tony, Tony in the nineties, to all of his producing and his composing of his solo works. He's Academy Award nominated. He's, he's absolutely amazing. And I was so fortunate to kind of get him on the show. Uh, and I was also really fortunate to see his working process because what he, he di he dives deep into the scripts. He wants to know thematically, okay, what is this entire episode about? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, where's the song take place? And what are you trying to tell with this song? So even before he puts any, any notes down or any lyrics down or anything, he really wants to get into the heart of why that song exists in the episode and what he can do to further the narrative and just kind of elevate the entire episode.
Speaker 3 00:08:41 Um, so I really love that, the deep thinking that he goes into it. And then as far as genre goes, it's, you can throw anything his way, any, any bizarre notion of, oh, it could be in this style, or maybe we fun to do this, and he just snaps right on it and just understands he gets it. He, he excels at it. Um, and it's, it's just amazing. And it, it's, it's, it's, it's almost become the type of thing where you, you just wanna keep expanding the musical style box of the show just, just to see how Ray translates, you know, this into something, some new musical sound that you've actually never heard before.
Speaker 4 00:09:27 And it really helps with the visuals because each song and the visuals that work hand in hand, you know, either you're inspired by the song or the song inspired by the visuals. And, and with that, you know, you're mixing genres, jumping to genres, but you're also with the visuals, you're jumping visuals genres also. So there's a lot of influence of just doing different animation styles, different looks for what we call the mix tape moments, which deal with the theme of the episode. And then we kind of do a visual, what's our visual interpretation of that? Or even just a visual interpretation of doing something that is really different from the show base show style. So it's, and we play a lot, a lot with that too. So, you know, we get the inspiration from many different, uh, things where graphic styles.
Speaker 2 00:10:18 Now I read that, um, I think I read that the pitch for, for Rafael Sadik to, to join was like at the Amoeba Awards. Now is that something, you know, you had kind of planned in advance, or was it, you know, you, you saw him and you, you know, just took a shot because
Speaker 3 00:10:34 Well, yeah, actually it was at, it was at Amoeba Records in Hollywood. Oh, oh, okay. <laugh>. So, so what happened? So it's, it's a crazy story. So when, because I was such a huge fan of Raphael Ss prior to the show, and when this, the opportunity to work on this show came up, I thought, he's the only person that can do this. But everyone thought, well, he's, he's a working professional music musician. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, he tours, he's working with John Legend producing this album, and he's on this show. And so they thought, I don't think he's gonna be able to do this. But I always like the personal touch when you're trying to bring someone onto a show to kind of give them the full perspective of what you're trying to pitch. So, uh, he had a record that had just come out at the time, Jimmy Lee, which is a fantastic album by the way.
Speaker 3 00:11:20 And he was doing a record signing Adam Ber Records in Hollywood. And I thought, okay, this is a good opportunity. So I got there early, I was first in line, and I had my record. And as he was signing my record in the, in the 30 seconds, he was signing my record, I was pitching him the show. And by the end of him signing my record, we had a handshake deal, and he wanted to do the show. We, we kind of locked the deal in place on that, on the spot, um, because he saw the potential of the show and he saw like, oh, this is, this is something really exciting, exciting. It's something he hadn't done before. Uh, he hadn't done any music for animation before, but he loves animation. So it felt like, well, this is something that, 'cause he, Ray also loves to try new stuff.
Speaker 3 00:12:03 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, he loves to really kind of expand, you know, his musical world. So this was something excited to him. And also I think that he was, he was really drawn to the fact that we were doing these stories that were also, they weren't just kind of surface stories. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they thematically were really deep. They were, though Luna Lafayette is a 13 year old, she has very relatable emotions to everyone. Yeah. And every episode that we would focus on, we would focus on a specific aspect of a personality that's very relatable. This episode's about jealousy, this episode's about impatience. And I think Ray recognized that, oh, musically he could do some really deep lyrical mm-hmm. <affirmative> stuff based on these very relatable human emotions. So I think he was drawn to all of that. But yeah, I mean, you can find me and Rafael Saddi in Amoeba Records fairly often. So it was just, it's just, it just all came together in a great way.
Speaker 4 00:12:56 So just imagine that encapsulated in 30 seconds. Just imagine what that pitch was, <laugh>. Oh,
Speaker 3 00:13:02 Yeah, yeah. No, I practiced it before I went into that. Yeah. It was, it was, it was refined.
Speaker 2 00:13:06 I'm so glad it worked out. Um, so, you know, you mentioned a little bit about the storylines and you mentioned that, um, you know, kind of how deep and how relatable some of the emotions in the storylines are. And, you know, I'd love to talk about that a little bit. I, I, you know, what can you tell us about, but for both of you about season one and kind of, um, Luella's journey and you know, what she's going to encounter. I know there the Beyonders is like Lawrence Fishburn character, the big villain, and, you know, I don't know anything else you can share without being too spoiler <laugh>.
Speaker 4 00:13:35 Yeah. You know, you're gonna see a lot of just Luella's journey as a person and mm-hmm. <affirmative> and coming into her own as a person, but also as a superhero. Uh, you know, and the fact that she is a 13 year old young girl who just happens to be a superhero, you know, so she's gonna be dealing with 13 year old girl problems, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> making friends, you know, uh, and just dealing with things that are very relatable. And that's the idea is like, you know, she's a 13 year old, she's a black girl. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but not just because she's a black girl, but she's, everything that she is doing is also related to anybody mm-hmm. <affirmative> related to that. So we wanted to just have that aspect of it in, into, uh, in our show.
Speaker 3 00:14:25 Absolutely. Yeah. And like Rodney said, it's a 13 who happens to be a superhero. That was such an important thing for us because it was the human relatability factor. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that really does draw an audience in and makes you fall in love with characters. And, and for this show, I was super fortunate 'cause I had worked in TV for a long time, but then I briefly went to features for a while, and features kind of has a very different, uh, methodology of, of storytelling. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and scripts, uh, and even coming up with ideas for stories. So when I came onto this show and I came back to tv, um, I was able to kind of bring some of those notions with me of cinematic storytelling. And I brought with me a couple of feature writers that I had worked with Kate Condell and Jeff Howard, and we were able to kinda look at this through kind of a different lens, a very cinematic lens where every episode felt like a movie in a way where it wasn't just, okay, this some fun stuff happens.
Speaker 3 00:15:20 And we've filled out 22 minutes. Each episode really does feel like it's, it's, you're building a character, you're building a human being mm-hmm. <affirmative> who's experiencing all these motions. And by the end of, you know, this season, she will have arced and she will become even a more fully realized person by the end of this. And for Luella, we start her in a place where she's so smart that maybe she has difficulty relating to other people in a lot of ways. So maybe she's a little bit of, she's alone in a way, and she meets her first friend, uh, in the first episode, Casey. And you kind of see her develop as a human being, as, as she becomes just more and more of a well-rounded person. It's a very cinematic, uh, sensibility to go into. But I think we've, we've benefited a lot from that type of storytelling.
Speaker 4 00:16:14 And just for the, the common thread that's through the, the episodes is that it's about family. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> importance of family, the importance of your community, protecting your community, and the choices you make that can affect both, you know, so Luella learns from her, her mom, you know, that one girl can make a difference, you know, and if that message resonates throughout the whole series and the importance of protecting your community and the choices that, I mean, she made a choice to become a superhero to, to, it was not thrust upon her. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, she made that conscious decision that I'm going to do something about that. So that you hope that that inspires more people to have that outlook and thought process of, of taking care of your community. You don't necessarily have to be a super smart genius 13 year old superhero, but there are ways that you can do that to help.
Speaker 2 00:17:14 I, I think it's so inspiring. I'm, I'm glad you mentioned family too, because I wanted to talk about that a little bit first. My, my daughter actually had a question when she saw the trailer a number of times, she wanted to know if Luella's parents knew that she was a superhero, and she wanted to know if, if they would find out. So I, I had to ask that. 'cause she wanted to know. And I don't know if you can share that without it being spoilery. Um, if not, it's okay. But I had to ask <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:17:39 Well, yeah, I mean, it does, it does feel like, you know, that we, we wanna tell, you know, really interesting stories. And it does feel like that's, that what a fascinating story that would be and how the family would react to that. So, I mean, all I think we can say to that is continue to keep watching Boom Girl and Devil Dinosaur and find out <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:17:57 Okay. Um, and I know we're running short on time, but I act, uh, actually also have a question about the guest stars. So I saw that recently. Um, I think Luella is gonna be, uh, the character is gonna walk around Disneyland in California. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:18:11 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:18:11 And in, in the article about that, I noticed some guest stars, and I wanna ask about two three of 'em actually. First I saw that Mai Jemison is a guest star. Yes. And that's amazing. I'm a space nerd and just like, can you share what anything about her character, what is she herself? Um,
Speaker 3 00:18:27 Yeah, <laugh>, well,
Speaker 2 00:18:30 Sorry,
Speaker 3 00:18:30 Here's the thing. It's not, I'm not pausing for spoilers. I'm, I'm, I'm pausing more for, for Angle because yes, she is playing herself, but she's not playing herself. Oh. And that, that is, I know, as the most cryptic answer possible, but it, it, it makes totally sense when you see the episode. But yeah, I mean, Mae Jemison is a huge inspiration to, to everyone. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and of course it would be to Luella. So when Luella has an opportunity to kind of interact with Mae Jemison in some capacity, she does, but I think it's gonna be a real interesting way to see how she does it.
Speaker 2 00:19:06 And now also, I think I saw Colby Kobe Smolders and me Amboy now, can you share anything about them and are they, you know, <laugh>
Speaker 4 00:19:16 Well, I, yeah. Kobe sms. Yeah. She's in the show and <laugh>, I guess you, maybe you can put two and two together, but just watch a show. And I guess you'll find out, and I, I, you know, may is, is, is playing a character in our show,
Speaker 2 00:19:34 <laugh> <laugh>. I love that. No, I had to ask.
Speaker 3 00:19:37 Yeah. It's like, it's like we would love to share more, but we also, uh, you know, we love that. Yeah. The audience discovery of these characters. I mean, I think that across the series, we, we have a really, uh, rich set of, of Marvel legacy characters. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and original characters, and every, every character we bring into the show kind of points and reinforces the thematic, uh, notion of what that episode is about. Uh, and so because of that, we have a lot of deep cut Marvel villains mm-hmm. <affirmative> and characters that you, you would be surprised to see in, in any animated form, maybe at this point. So, uh, because thematically it, it fit in, it made a lot of sense. And I think Marvel was very excited for us to be able to kind of reincarnate some of these characters that may have been around for a while. We're
Speaker 4 00:20:25 Like, Hey, how about this person, this person? You're like, I never heard of this person, but yeah, let's make them cool and then, and make it into our own style. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, and what's what we also about, just going back to the me jemison aspect of it, is that, you know, Luella is smart. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, she's one of the smartest per people in the Marvel universe. So, you know, science, stem, that's important. And I think it's important to have that showcased, especially when it comes to girls, especially young black girls, to see that mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And we also like to throw in little aside of, of mentions of, uh, scientists, important scientists and things like that, so that you know it when she references them. Or, you know, maybe somebody will Google and learn something about somebody they'd never heard of before.
Speaker 2 00:21:14 I think that's just fantastic. Um, now I, again, I know we're running short on time. Is there anything that either of you kind of wanna share about the series? Um, I feel like I could ask you questions about animation and, you know, how you both got into it all day. But, um, anything about the series that we haven't talked about that you wanna share? <laugh>,
Speaker 3 00:21:34 I think that, um, an important thing for us is to make something that feels for quadrant four Quadrant. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> is an industry term about basically it being able to appeal to an entire family. Um, and that was really important to us that, you know, it's not just the type of show where, you know, you can put your kids just in front of the TV and leave the room. It just felt like there's, there's a lot of vested interest for parents to watch it with their kids. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I think that they'll find it very entertaining as well. And I think that there'll be some really good discussion points after each episode to kind of talk about. Um, so I think that it's gonna be something that everyone enjoys. We made sure that there was a lot of comedy, there was a lot of action, there was a lot of emotion, a lot of great music. Um, so hopefully it kind of brings everyone to the show. 'cause I really do think that they'll enjoy it.
Speaker 4 00:22:25 Yeah. We just wanted to have it entertaining as well as educational and informative and, and spark whatever conversation I, 'cause I know that I enjoy, like, when I watch things with my son and I kind of explained, do you know what that means? You know, or do you wanna talk? Do you understand that, you know, and, and, and really go into the conversations about what gentrification is and how, and what, how. You can't be everything to everyone. It's okay to say no sometimes, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it's those, those lessons and, and other things that I can't talk about <laugh>, but, uh,
Speaker 2 00:23:02 <laugh>,
Speaker 4 00:23:03 We want to make sure that that comes across and it makes, it makes it easier for parents to talk to their kids about certain things.
Speaker 2 00:23:13 I think that's, you know, from, from the episodes I saw it, it does, it's a great venue, like a great vehicle for that. So I'm, I'm excited for it to be out. And it comes out on February 10th on the Disney Channel. Right.
Speaker 3 00:23:24 February 10th on Disney Channel. February 15th on Disney Plus.
Speaker 2 00:23:27 Well, thank you both so very much. I am very thankful and appreciate it.
Speaker 3 00:23:31 Thank you. No, thank you. This is great. Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:23:37 Thank you for listening. You can find the companion article for this podcast, along with all the other news for those who like superheroes, science fiction and fantasy films, TV shows, and other
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