Our New Favorite Show: Future-Worm!

I often times get to go do things that even my kids are jealous of. Future-Worm! is a new show that is going to be on Disney XD that both my kids are dying to see. They have scoured You Tube for all the videos they can find on it and can’t wait for the premiere episode to air on Disney XD on August 1st.

While I was in LA covering the red carpet, we made a stop to talk to Emmy Award-winning director and producer Ryan Quincy. He is both the creator and executive producer of Disney XD’s animated comedy adventure series “Future-Worm!” He was so much fun to talk to. Ryan started off telling us about himself.

I worked in animation for almost 20 years. A lot of it was in cartoons for adults. I worked on South Park for about 14 years. I have two kids. My daughter is eight, and my son is 12. A lot of times growing up, they’re like, “Dad, we want to see what you’re working on” We can’t, no. We’re not showing any South Park episodes to the kids.

I always wanted to make a show for my kids that I could watch with my kids. It’s a fun, time travel show.  It’s not a show that is time travel in the sense of going back and seeing who knocked the nose off the Sphinx. It’s a lot of fun, it’s absurd, it’s silly. It’s the most fun I’ve had in animation. I love the crew. I love the cast, and I can’t wait to share this with you guys. 

Now, I’ve gotten to see an episode already.  I know my kids will love it especially my 9 year old son.  They have a pretty unique set up too.  Three cartoons make up a half-hour show.  There is an 11-minute, a three-minute, and a seven-minute cartoon in each episode. They’ve got a nice variety of adventures and stories to tell.  I can’t tell you who, but they also have a great line up of special guests too!

His kids definitely have input into the show:

Oh, they love it.  Not only do we get notes from the execs, my kids also give them. It’s been fun to share it with them.  

They’ve actually made changes to the show based on his kids thoughts!  We also asked him about what his inspiration was for the show:

When I came over to Disney to develop something, what was so liberating about the marching orders was that I was told to make a show that I always wanted to make.  I always loved time travel and adventure shows, and I‘m good friends with Justin Roiland, who did Rick and Morty.  When we were talking he said,  if you’re gonna do that there’s always the rules you have to deal with. I was like, do you, though?  That was really sort of the inspiration of doing sort of this self-indulgent time travel and not every episode is time travel.  There’s other adventures, too.  

I even tapped into my own nine year old brain, and was like, what was the show that I would’ve loved to see on Saturday morning.  There was a lot of what do my kids want to watch, and what do I want to watch with my kids. 

We then asked him about how he came up with Future-Worm! :

I started with just the name, Future-Worm! .  That just sounded funny to me.  Of course, if his name is Future-Worm!, he has to be a time traveler.  It just started there, and I started thinking about the stuff that I loved as a kid.  I loved pro wrestling.  I liked Hulk Hogan, Macho Man, Ultimate Warrior, Mr. T.  and Chuck Norris.  All that stuff got thrown into the suit.  I also just wanted that sidekick that would be by you walking down the halls at school or having your back.  That was really the whole inspiration of the character.  I just started drawing worms with beards and weird hairstyles.

We then asked how does he come up with the ideas for each episode:

It’s a lot of fun going into the writers’ room.  It is like what stories are we going to tell?  There are no rules.  That’s kind of  our thing  that it is a time travel show, but that’s sort of more of the backdrop.  It’s more about these two best friends.  Future Worm has seen everything, he’s been everywhere.  He could hang out with anyone in any time period, and he chooses to hang out with Danny.That says a lot about Danny’s character.  Danny was always kind of looking for  a sidekick or someone to have his back through all these adventures.They complete each other.That’s the core, heart and soul of the show.

It was so cool to talk to Ryan and spend time with him.  I had a great time and my kids can’t wait till August 1st!