The Replacements: The Concept

WOW!

So I watched "The Replacements" sneak peek on Friday night with my wife and sister-in-law and I have to admit that I wasn't so much happy and excited as I thought I would be, but rather, the whole experience to me was just rather surreal.

Did I actually see that?

What was originally concieved as a rather complex children's book idea back in 2004 finally came to fruition as a television show in 2006. My original concept was a picture book story about a boy who was sick and tired of his parents making rules and restricitions for him such as, 'Go to bed', 'Take a bath', 'Eat your Vegetables' etc. etc. etc. and one day he finds an old comic book which offers an ad where you can replace your old parents for cooler ones that didn't set rules and every kid in your neighborhood would envy. The boy, in my story ended up getting a Mexican Wrestler for a Dad (Actually, he's the masked man in the upper left hand side of this site- named El Pa-Pa) and a Cowgirl for a Mom. After a few weeks he realized that even though his new 'cool' parents were fun and exciting, they didn't necessarily make 'good' parents and the boy soon realizes that the rules that his original parents instilled were for his own well being. In the end the boy realizes that his 'cool' parents had 30 day warranties stiched to the seat of their pants and by simply tearing it off he could get a full parent refund. This is the way my children's book is supposed to go.

The parents served almost like props in my story. (Kind of existential, I know) The original parents never realized they were being swapped because Dad's face was always buried behind a newspaper and mom was too busy knitting to notice they were being carried out by movers.

So a lot of people asked me....How did I come up with this idea?

Way back when I was seven years old I had bought a huge stack of old comic books from a garage sale. These were comics from the 50's and 60's and back then there were whole page ads of strange things you could buy via mail order. There were things like 'Six Pack Abs in 30 Days', 'UFO parts', and 'X-Ray Glasses', and 'Disappearing Ink', and so on and I thought to myself, "What would be a strange thing I could think of?"

I think there's a little bit in every kid who wished that his father was famous basketball player, Michael Jordan, or their mother was first female astronaut, Sally Ride, so that they could brag to their friends and boast about how great their family is. I think by my influence of writers like William Joyce and Maurice Sendak who always empower the child in their stories to control their destiny, I naturally went in this direction of a kid wanting to make his life better by changing variable 'X' or 'Y' in his life.

So how did the concept change?

Now, I have to admit that I have little to no experience in animation so I didn't have much of an idea of how to make the show 'series' friendly without it getting stale week after week. Disney hooked me up with Jack Thomas, a funny guy who was the Story Editor on 'Fairly Oddparents' and together we tried all different kinds of ways to make the show work. Jack had a real good knack for animation story structure and pacing and so forth, all of which I had no experience in and he was also very supportive of my original vision. For those of you who are writers for a living I don't think it's a real surprise when I say that writing for books is a completely different beast than writing for television animation. I simply had the idea that the show was going to be about Todd and Riley and what life would be like for them trying to live a normal family life with these oddball parents.

Barry Blumberg, the President of Disney Television Animation thought he show needed something else to spice it up and at the time had suggested that the kids have the ability to swap out, not only the parents, but any adult in town that they saw fit. Everyone in the executive board room loved the idea. I admittedly put up a big stink because it was a modification of my original idea, but now in retrospect, I believe Barry made the right decision. I won't lie to you and say I didn't feel like I was selling out to a certain degree but after mulling it over in my mind everyone was starting to make a lot of sense. Technically, they didn't change anything to my original concept, they had just simply added another 30% to it.

I remember talking with William Joyce about six months ago and he said... "Don't ever compromise your idea. If you hold your ground they will respect you for it and in the end you will make something that you'll be proud of."

Well Bill, thanks for the advice but I don't exactly have your credentials so I don't really have that much clout.

And I'm still VERY proud of the work that was done.

Maybe next time...If there is a next time.

NEXT: CHARACTER DESIGN

Comments

[Woody Miller]

RIght On! I caught the show on Disney (I think the original channel?). Anyway, it was great, it made me wish I had shows like that in the 80's when I was a kid. It must be strange but cool to have a cartoon that looks like your pictures! Can't wait to see more later this year.

P.S. Loved the old baseball coach and the opening titles.

[Tony]

I loved it!!!! I too think that it has your original concept with more added to it. Your are a bright and creative Dan. Disney is VERY WELL AWEAR OF THAT OR YOU WOULD'NT BE THERE!!! Don't be hard on yourself, (as we know that artist are their toughest critics!). You will have many more. I think you will be more successful than your goals may hold! Keep it up!