Developed by Disney animation veteran Bobs Gannaway and inspired by the world of Disney and Pixar’s Monsters, Inc., the Disney+ original animated series Monsters at Work picks up the day after the power plant switched over to the laughter of children from scares, as the thing used to fuel the city of Monstropolis. With 10 episodes, audiences will get to catch up with Mike Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal) and James P. “Sulley” Sullivan (voiced by John Goodman) while also meeting a new misfit bunch of monsters as part of the Monsters, Inc. Facilities Team (MIFT), including Tylor Tuskmon (voiced by Ben Feldman), Val Little (voiced by Mindy Kaling) and Fritz (voiced by Henry Winkler).
During a virtual press conference with members of the media to promote the new series, the cast and executive producer Gannaway talked about returning to these beloved characters while introducing new ones, where these episodes fall in the timeline of the world that was created in the films, why the overall mission statement of this show is an important one, whether we’ll see any glimpses of the human world, and what they hope fans will get from checking this out.
Question: Billy and John, how does it feel to be back playing these beloved characters again?
BILLY CRYSTAL: I loved getting back into Mike. I don’t think he ever left. He’s pretty much my favorite character that I’ve ever played. I had so much fun with John on the first two films, so to get a chance to team up again, in such a beautiful, funny, brand new series, was actually so exciting for me.
JOHN GOODMAN: Yeah, it was a no-brainer. The script so good and the animation is of such high quality that it makes it a lot of fun.
Ben, how did it feel to join this amazing cast and do you think it’s similar to how Tylor feels when he joins the iconic monsters at Monsters, Incorporated?
BEN FELDMAN: It was horrifying to join this cast. I look up to [all of them] and feel like I somehow crow-barred my way into a room that I don’t belong in. I love this show so much. As for the character and I, we share the Venn diagram of a big middle that’s just filled with nervous, stammering confusion and terror.
Mindy, who is Val Little? What do you like most about her and can you relate to her?
MINDY KALING: First, I just wanna say how excited I am to be a part of this cast. I love the actors that I get to act with. [Even though we don’t get to be together], it’s really, really great. I just love Val. She’s so enthusiastic and earnest and pure. I normally play sociopaths, so that’s really nice. I love how visually cute she is. Her color palette is great. I love the pinks and the oranges. It matches her personality, which is really upbeat.
Henry, you’ve played many beloved characters and have been a part of many iconic projects. What’s it like joining such a beloved franchise, as this new character Fritz?
HENRY WINKLER: I love being part of this ensemble, but what I’ve learned is that, if it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage. Bobs [Gannaway] directed us and oversaw the writing of this incredible team. Then, I got to act with Ben. I didn’t see Billy, John or Mindy, and if we’re picked up, I hope that I get to do that. It’s unbelievably great. It is so much fun. And I love the way he looks.
Bobs, what about the Monsters, Inc. world lends itself particularly well to episodic storytelling?
BOBS GANNAWAY: Doing this as a series is great because it really gives us time to spend time with old friends and make new friends. The series allows you to really dig into both, so we could spend time with Mike and Sulley, but then we also get to meet this new group.
Where does this series fall within the timeline of the movies?
GANNAWAY: Monsters, Inc. ended with the switch to laugh power. Our show takes place the day after the switch from scares to laughs. There’s a big change in the world, and that’s when a lot of great stories happen.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the original film. What are some of the themes and elements from the films that fans loved, that we’ll get to see again in the series?
GANNAWAY: From the beginning, my goal was to make sure the audience gets to go back to a place they love, so we worked very, very hard. That’s why having Billy and John back was so important. It wouldn’t be the same place without them. I really wanted to make sure you get to go back to a place you love and spend time with friends, and then go places you haven’t seen.
This series is all about the monsters trying to generate laughs. How important is that, after the challenges of the past year?
FELDMAN: The viewing audience, in general, is a little fatigued with darker, serious, more grim and bleak stories, so this is an incredible time to come in and talk about how what we really all need to unify everybody and to bring everybody together is laughter and comedy. The overall mission statement of this show could not be more perfect for the time that we’re in right now.
CRYSTAL: The great thing about it is that the family can watch it together. Everybody can watch it together. I was really moved by it, in a lot of ways. It’s actually quite emotional and it’s really funny. All of these new characters breathe a whole new life into the family of Monsters, Inc. and Monsters University. I just think the timing of this couldn’t be any better. Everybody can sit down and watch something together.
GOODMAN: And it’s a great place to escape to. It’s just a wonderful otherworld of the imaginative that’s out there, and it’s a great place to get away to and take a little vacation.
CRYSTAL: It’s a great place to go to work. It was such a strange process this year because of the pandemic. The only person I saw was the sound mixer, Paul [McGrath]. I would pull up to the empty lot and it was like an episode of The Walking Dead. There was nobody there. And then, somebody would greet you in a hazmat suit and scrub you down. I went to the studio and Bobs and everybody else was on a big screen. We never saw each other. But the joy for me, with Mike, is always, no matter what you say, it can happen. That’s the incredible thing about working for Pixar and especially on this incredible series. Anything is possible, if you just imagine it. That’s the joy of doing it.
WINKLER: I’ve found the same thing. Bobs and the team always embraced whenever I would just go off on a tangent, and it makes you feel so much a part of the process. And then, you see that same sense of community when it’s in the episodes. And it’s not just silly for kids. It’s not just silly humor. It really is a family event.
KALING: I love that I can watch this with my daughter, who’s three now. Having spent the whole year in quarantine and having stared at every single door in my house, there’s something so nice about this world where the door of your bedroom could lead to this amazing place. It’s so wonderful. I did all of my recordings when I was six to nine months pregnant, and they made it so easy for me. It was really wonderful.
FELDMAN: I’m a writer as well, and it was great to see how many women write for this show. You probably don’t know that when you were just watching it, but I think it’s great. And I’m excited for my daughter to be able to see an extension of the world of the movies. Bobs has done such a good job of keeping it at the same quality of the movies, and then there’s the work that John and Billy did with those lines.
CRYSTAL: When the first movie, Monsters, Inc., came out, my grandchildren didn’t really know what I did. And then, one day, we were walking in a mall and paparazzi people came out and were taking pictures of me, and they were freaked out and I had to explain to them what I did. And the first movie [of mine] that they could see was Monsters, Inc. because I could not really explain to them why she was screaming in the deli in When Harry Met Sally. So, they would call the house looking for Mike. They didn’t want to talk to me. They would say, “Hello, is Mike there?” And I’d go, “Oh, hold on, I’ll get him.” I had to talk like Mike for six or eight months.” So, it was great to be able to revisit it. Now that they’re older, their friends will watch it. Adults who were kids when it first came out will have their kids watch it, and that’s a great feeling.
Billy and John, what’s changed in Mike and Sulley’s lives, since we last saw them?
CRYSTAL: Now that they’re harvesting laughs on the laugh floor, it’s not the scare floor anymore. And now they’re in charge. They used to say about Laurel and Hardy that it was two minds without a single thought. Sulley is always the smarter one, and Mike thinks he’s in charge. And they have to deal with a couple of new characters, besides Tylor. There’s Roze, who is the twin sister of Roz.
GANNAWAY: Mike has to train all of the scary monsters to be funny.
CRYSTAL: Mike’s got responsibilities. At the end of some of the episodes, Mike has a comedy class where he tries to teach the monsters how to be funny. We had a great time inventing that and trying to be funny when Mike really isn’t.
GANNAWAY: And Sulley is really trying to manage Mike’s enthusiasm now that he’s a co-executive. He’s a little more pragmatic.
GOODMAN: It’s more fun to do laughs instead of scares. Sulley wanted to be a big scare guy, but I think he’s really found his groove now.
For Mindy, Ben and Henry, what attracted you to this series? When you read the script for the first time, what did you like most about it?
KALING: The truth is, I did a voice in Inside Out, and the experience of working on a Pixar film was so gratifying and every element of it was so good, that the idea that I could be part of a movie that I already love, that is being produced by the, and to get to work with all new writers and Bobs, and that it might continue on, I don’t even know that I read the script or looked at the drawings. I just said yes. It was as simple as that.
FELDMAN: Yeah, for me, both Monsters films were so incredibly iconic and so great. I’d seen them a million times and I never expected that I would be in anything like this, just because I don’t see myself as someone that anybody wants to listen to or look at or hang out with. But because I stammer and I’m awkward and I’m a little neurotic, I got really lucky because that apparently was what Bobs was looking for. I feel like I slipped in the cracks, and I couldn’t be more thrilled and more honored to be a part of this. Having to do ADR took like 17 hours each time because I have to match all of the ridiculous things that came out of my mouth.
WINKLER: I was asked. There was the title Monsters, they’re great movies, and it was Disney, Billy and John, and then I got to meet everybody else. It was not necessarily in that order, except that I was asked, which was great.
GANNAWAY: When we cast the shows, what we do initially is put up a drawing or rendering of the character, and then we listen to voices and we try to see what voice feels like it’s coming out of that character. It’s blind casting because it has to feel real. And with Henry’s character in particular, when we had the drawing of Fritz up there and his voice came out, it was like, “Done!” He’s the heart and warmth of the MIFT team. That’s the hub right there.
WINKLER: I also have never sung before and they let me improvise songs. When I was reading the lines, I just burst into song and they went, “Okay, we’re gonna do that. That’s gonna be in it.”
FELDMAN: Henry is so good. I could watch an entire musical episode of just him singing. He’s so funny.
Mindy and Ben, if you were accepted into Monsters University, what would you major in?
KALING: I feel like I sound like a 12-year-old girl and no one is very intimidated by me, so I would want to try to be as scary and as intimidating as possible. I don’t know what class that would be.
FELDMAN: I feel like I would major in cooking or baking. Is there a chef school? I don’t know that I would excel in a lot of monster qualities or talents, but I do feel like having seen the movies and the show, the food could use some work. It’s so gross, or maybe that’s the point. In which case, I love that. I think making breakfast out of snot and mud would be fun.
Henry, are you more Fritz or Fonzie?
WINKLER: Wow. I think I’m a combo. If I was gonna go to comedy school, I would study physical humor.
Bobs, will we see the monsters interacting with the human world at all? Will Boo be making an appearance?
GANNAWAY: No, we don’t go into the human world, beyond the kids’ bedrooms. The fun thing about the Monsters world is that we really dig into the rules. All the monsters know about the human world, they’ve really only learned from kids’ rooms and the kids’ point of view. That’s something you have to keep in mind. They’re not that aware of the human world and how it works. So, when our characters are trying to interpret something from the human world, they’re coming at it from almost a kid’s point of view. Also, Boo does not make an appearance in the series. I’ll leave it at that. Pete Docter and I had a nice discussion about Boo, and we both agreed the relationship between Boo and Sulley is so precious and so wonderful that we want to leave it to the world to have their own interpretation of how that relationship continued and not define it. It’s not that we don’t love Boo and don’t wanna see her again, but that relationship is so precious that we wanna leave it and let the world have that.
WINKLER: I heard it was contractual.
John and Billy, what do you hope fans will take away from this new series?
GOODMAN: Just to get reintroduced and go back into the world of it and escape into it.
CRYSTAL: What I love is that the story just continues. It’s the next day, where Monsters, Inc. stopped. It doesn’t feel like a sequel, or anything like that. It just feels like the story is continuing. For those who loved it and have grown up loving it, the story’s just gonna keep on going and going. When I met with Bobs and everybody and said, “Where are we going with this? What are we doing?,” when they explained it, I was like, “Oh, great!” When you see it, you’ll be blown away. It’s really great to be a part of it again.
The first two episodes of Monsters at Work are available to stream at Disney+ starting today.