‘Iron Man and His Awesome Friends’ Creative Team Dish On New Disney Jr. Show: “We are Universe 123ABC”

Courtesy of Disney

Iron Man is dead. Long live Iron Man. On August 11th, the much beloved Marvel superhero will be rebooted - in a way none of us would have ever expected. Iron Man and His Awesome Friends will not only bring Tony Stark back as a genius child inventor, but be joined by best friends Riri William (better known as Ironheart) and Amadeus Cho (better known as Iron Hulk). This superpowered trio not only seeks to educate the younger crowd by solving problems but also looks to entertain by creating action packed stories with other familiar Marvel faces. Webbing off of another highly popular Disney Jr series called Spidey and His Amazing Friends (which is currently in its fourth season), Iron Man and His Awesome Friends is sure to be a hit for both parents and children alike. Speaking to the show’s executive producer Sean Coyle and co-executive producer/story editor James Eason-Garcia - The Movie Nerds strived to find out the details behind how such an Iron Man adaptation was made.

Salvatore Cento: First things first - the theme song as well the little number that plays when Tony, Riri and Amadeus transform into their suits are straight up bops and I could listen to them all day long. I really could, haha. Could you go into a bit of detail on how the partnership between Disney Channel and Blink 182 happened? And also, generally speaking - why is the music so important to get right in a show like this?

Sean Coyle: All the credit in the world goes to Jay Sutler. He’s the head of the music department at Disney Junior. It often goes unnoticed just how integral their relationship is to these series, I mean they got Patrick Stump to do Spidey. The relationships that they form and nurture with existing artists and up and coming artists - you can throw out any names you want to and they’re like yea, we can get that guy. But they actually came to us - because our show has such a distinct west coast feel, they came to us and they were like - got it, Blink 182. We’ll get Mark Hoppus. We’re like - oh, ok. Jay. Sure, you’ll get Mark Hoppus - and he did! It was phenomenal. Their music has such a vibe and a feel which is such a part of the DNA and the fabric of our show in helping it stand apart. Spidey is very much Manhattan and New York and it’s got a kind of East Coast vibe to it. We wanted this to stand apart in that way. The music is as much a character in the show as anything else.

James Eason-Garcia: We really, really want our audience, our kids - and even the parents, aunts and uncles watching at home - to get up off the couch and throw your fists up in the air when the music comes on. That’s what we’ve gotten with our great partnership with Mark Hoppus and the theme song, the armor up sequence. When it comes on every episode, you know - oh! things are about to go up another level. The action is kicking in.

Cento: When it comes to a series like this that has a much younger intended audience than most Marvel productions, what were your top priorities when adapting the heroes - and well, the villains - in Iron Man and his Awesome Friends? Where does the balance lie in them being recognizable but also welcoming for preschoolers and kindergartners?

Coyle: The Marvel characters in the Spidey show are staying true to the whole secret identity thing. But the characters in our show are front and center. They are rock stars to the world. Everybody knows who they are. An Iron suit can do anything you need it to do , but we really wanted to make sure we were creating three really distinct characters. Three different points of view. How is it James? We would say the head, the heart and the -?

Eason-Garcia: The humor.

Coyle: They have very distinct points of view and seeing those points of view come together - all for problem solving. Sometimes these points of view create problems from time to time too. But just making sure that the audience at home could tune in and be like, “I’m just like Tony or I’m just like Riri or I’m just like Amadeus or that there’s a part of me in each of these characters” - that is super important to just find a relatable in with our characters. We want to make sure audiences feel that they are kids and just be lured into the world in that way, right? The first episode shows them playing frisbee. Every kid has played with a frisbee before or gone to the beach . . . or even tinkering with some sort of an invention or something like that. We get into these stories in a fun and relatable way where the kids are like “I’ve done that!” or “I want to do that!” or “I understand what they’re doing!”

Cento: I have to ask this for my own curiosity - Iron Man is currently non-existent within the grander MCU. Besides the comics of course, that sort of creates an empty canvas for the character in this storytelling medium. Did that affect this show’s creational development in any way shape or form?

Coyle: Yes, I don’t know if the timing was intentional but obviously you look at what’s happening in the MCU and the heroic end in endgame -

Eason-Garcia: Spoiler alert!

Coyle: laughs So yea, there is like a void to fill. James touched on it a little bit before. Spidey and His Amazing Friends is hugely successful. It’s wonderful and it’s reached a huge audience. We all love that show. But because of that show (thanks to Marvel and Disney), we just had to take this opportunity to continue to introduce Marvel characters - this wonderful collection of Marvel characters - to new audiences. I think it was just kind of a no-brainer. The thought was kind of like . . . Iron Man is done over there so let’s kind of start over essentially. We’re not claiming that this Tony is the Tony that grows up to have fought Thanos in MCU …. maybe he is, that would be pretty cool! laughs For James and I, that was obviously part of the honor but also the biggest weight - making sure we get it right. Like, this is Iron Man for a new generation. A new generation that is going to grow up - and in fifteen, twenty years - watch those movies and be like “hey, that’s the guy from the cartoon I watched when I was three years old! That’s pretty cool. I get it now.”

Eason-Garcia: We always like to say the MCU is Universe 616 and we are Universe 123ABC. It’s preschool. It’s fun. It’s lighthearted. It’s taking all the characters that parents know and love and just making them accessible and relatable for the audience.

Cento: So does the Spidey show come from Universe 123ABC? That’s amazing. I love that laughs

Everybody laughs

Eason-Garcia: I can’t really say. That’s just something we’ve internally talked about on our show but maybe, maybe there is a bit of shared universe space there.

Coyle: I imagine someone at Marvel right now being like there’s a disturbance -

Eason-Garcia: A new universe has been created. What’s happening! laughs

Coyle: Kang just did something!

Cento: Oh no!

Everybody laughs again

Cento: Even though after watching the screener episodes, Riri and Amadeus are great foils for Tony - was there any initial consideration towards other trios of superheroes at first? And also once Iron Man was locked in, were Riri and Amadeus always the top two picks? as allies or were there other possibilities that just didn’t make the final cut?

Eason-Garcia: We worked really, really closely with our partners at Marvel and Disney Jr. They were really the ones who came to us and said: we want to continue the success of Spidey and keep introducing new characters to the world. They always knew they wanted Tony as the center focus of the show. As we were all discussing it, what really appealed to us and what we wanted to appeal to families and kids at home - was just the idea that Tony’s a super genius. We wanted to surround him with other characters who had that same level of super genius that he does. Both Riri Williams and Amadeus Cho fit that bill in the Marvel world. All of these three together just felt like the right group - three friends that hang out together, that invent together, that could all create an iron suit together. It just became this wonderful pairing of putting these three together and kind of letting the magic happen. They can create anything, they can invent anything, they can do anything. They can save the day.

Cento: As every episode is a new adventure for our three young heroes, a lot of lessons inevitably come along the way as well. When it comes to Iron Man and his Awesome Friends, what are you hoping to convey to the many young minds as well that watch this show?

Coyle: For me, it’s the celebration of friendship - for sure. I mean these kids are best friends. They are their own ride or die crew. We do have guest heroes who also do come in and we feel that. We feel that this is not their first rodeo. These kids have been saving the world for a while now. I think the most important thing for me as a father is something that we touched on earlier. The Iron Suit can literally do anything, right? But it’s the kid inside the suit that is the real hero. We really do want kids to be watching this show and be inspired by what the on-screen characters do.They wake up and ask themselves how they can make their world the most awesomest place it can be. That’s what we want kids at home to think too. You have the power to go out there and make the world the best it can be. Whether your world is just your family unit or your world is the whole world - you have the power to make a difference.

Eason-Garcia: First and foremost, we just want it to be fun, we want it to be exciting - that was always our goal when we sat down with all the writers and started coming up with all the ideas. It went like this - what’s fun? What’s exciting? What’s going to get kids really excited and jazzed about the show? That’s always the main goal. Everything Sean is saying is what we were aiming for. I think something that was important to me personally that comes across in the show is tenacity. We have a slogan on the show that goes like this: It’s not a problem. It’s a challenge. It’s a mindset of like, let’s not give up on something - we can make it through. That’s an underlying theme of a lot of it. Again, let’s make the day totally awesome. There might be challenges along the way, but we will accomplish overcoming that challenge. The main characters do that through their smarts, through their friendships, and through their different points of view. It’s really just about the celebration of friendship and also making the world a better place. It’s a lot of fun watching them go through that every episode.

Cento: Besides Spidey and His Amazing Friends being the most synonymous, were there any other supplementary inspirations behind the making of this show? Did you have any other shows and movies in the back of your mind while making Iron Man and His Awesome Friends?

Coyle: We’re movie and comic book geeks, right? We’re just like the fans, honestly. To mine from our own personal catalog of stuff we grew up with and also that collaborative partnership with Marvel - to have those conversations where we can come to the table with ideas, characters we want to feature and things like that - but working together to figure out which ones make the most sense and how they can more easily interpret to a pre-school world . . . it’s all one big evolution of separate ideas. It’s one of the most fun things about this. Creatively speaking, we really wanted it to feel like we were making eleven minute movies. Each half hour episode is two eleven minute stories, right? For us, we wanted it to sort of embody what a lot of these MCU movies have which is heightened reality - not so much that you don’t believe what’s happening - and also a lot of comedy, a lot of heart, and then just like freakin’ kick-ass action sequences laughs. When these heroes go about wearing flying suits that shoot repulsor blasts and stuff like that, when those kids are flying around doing their awesome thing - that’s all got to look amazing, that has to keep butts glued to the seats.

Eason-Garcia: For me, comic books is where it all comes from. Comic books is where it started. I started reading comic books when I was the audience’s age for this show. So, every episode we were looking at what’s a fun comic book type-idea. We never directly pool from story lines but we were inspired by those comics and by the MCU. Sean and I are also huge Simpsons junkies. Simpsons defined my sense of humor as a kid and I think that kind of fun, silliness and reverence has seeped into the corresponding humor and playfulness of our show as well.

Cento: Alright guys, that is it! Thank you so much!

Eason-Garcia: Thank you very much Sal! Great talking with you!

Coyle: Have a good one!

Iron Man and his Awesome Friends will have its series premiere August 11th on Disney Jr. and next day on Disney+. Besides numerous shorts already being uploaded onto the official Disney Jr. YouTube channel (which introduces different heroes and villains that will be on the show), the theme song is also there which currently sits at over 1.6 million views.