‘StuGo’ Creator Ryan Gillis Introduces Us to His Animated Lab Rats

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Disney Channel is kicking off the new year with a bright, fast-moving and utterly entertaining show titled StuGo. Created by Ryan Gillis (The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, Pickle and Peanut), the series centers on six overachievers (OK, you can call them nerds!) who believe they’ve qualified for a super cool summer camp on a remote island for three months. Once they arrive on this mysterious island, they meet Dr. Lullah (Lorraine Toussaint) — a very unreliable mad scientist who is actually just using the kids for her highly questionable experiments.

Gillis was kind enough to take some time away from his magical island to give us the story behind his new show. He says the series was actually inspired by a study-abroad course he took in college. “A bunch of art students and I took a little propeller plane from South Florida for a two-week wood-carving class in Andros, the largest but least populated island in the Bahamas,” he remembers. “We got set up with tents on one of the most idyllic beaches I’ve ever seen — but the tropics are more than postcard vistas — they’re teeming with life and have extreme weather that can change on a dime. Our tents blew away the first day; we ended up sleeping on inflatable pool rafts and luggage in a single-room schoolhouse that got invaded by flying termites every night.”

He says that, outside of class, he and his friends had free rein to do whatever they wanted. “That meant a group of kids scrambling all up and down the coast of this island, exploring at our will,” Gillis says. “It was a little rugged but super liberating, and one of the best trips of my life. I met my dang wife on that trip!”

Mad Scientist on the Loose

Gillis pitched the show to Disney back in 2019. He worked on a few other projects before StuGo got the greenlight in 2022, and production began the following year. The series is produced by Titmouse in association with Disney Television Animation. The animation team is divided between Titmouse and Snipple in the Philippines. (That doesn’t include the show’s music, voice recording studio, post studio, freelancers and all the actors.)

There are many things Gillis loves about his new project, among them is the fact that he gets to explore the wild natural ecosystems of South Florida, his home state. “StuGo’s been a perfect vehicle to celebrate a lot of things I love about tropical ecosystems like the one I grew up in,” he says. “You can’t ignore the natural world in South Florida; it’s always knocking at your door and swimming up your toilet. You really have to reckon with nature and your place in it.”

The eclectic and hilarious main characters — voiced by Toussaint, Tania Gunadi, Zosia Mamet, Zach Reino, Gabourey Sidibe, Charlyne Yi, Deborah Baker Jr. and Jake Green — are also a huge draw. “I love the characters,” shares Gillis. “Getting to make this show means that I got to work with a team of actors, and writers, and designers, and storyboard artists, who have all enriched the characters that I invented and made everything funnier and more specific than I ever could have imagined. It has been an incredibly fulfilling part of the experience to see such a talented team of folks take ownership of this ensemble.”

“Everyone works hard to keep the show surprising and entertaining — but it’s the characters that make the difference between a show that’s fun and a show you love and return to.”

— Series creator Ryan Gillis

 

 

The overall visuals of the show have some South Floridian/Caribbean influences, but Gillis says he didn’t want to romanticize the tropics. “I wanted the buildings to be degraded from the rain and salty air,” he explains. “We’re not the only show with a mad scientist, so we talked about making Dr. Lullah’s tech more specific by adorning her inventions with plaster, Spanish tile and art deco flourishes.”

“These were all ideas I had, but it was our art director, Sam Bosma [whose many credits include Steven Universe and The Owl House], that turned them into an incredibly appealing reality,” Gillis points out. “I’m not blowing smoke when I say I was a fan of Sam’s for years before we had the opportunity to work together. I think he’s one of the best Illustrators in America, and he led an absolutely stacked team of designers through the season. I was blown away by the evolving look of the show in every art meeting!”

On the topic of challenges, Gillis brings up the importance of time and deadlines. He says, “It’s a wild thing to say after taking seven years to get to screen, but the most difficult thing about production was the amount of material due every week — usually a new premise, script, design packet, storyboard and animatic. It was an intense schedule!”

Like many animation creators, Gillis has a lot of respect and admiration for the innovators and pioneers of the art form. “There are the giants — Fleischer, Norman McLaren, Alex Toth, Otomo, Studio 4°C, Aardman and Miyazaki,” he mentions. “Early Adult Swim shows like Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Home Movies — OK, I know that wasn’t originally on Adult Swim, but that’s how I found it — blew my mind with their loose, naturalistic storytelling.”

“There are a lot of indie animators that are making work right now that are my heroes,” he continues. “Joe Bennett, Caleb Wood, Jeanette Fantone, Jocelyn Charles, Mikey Please. Kangmin Kim, Niki Lindroth von Bahr and Simon Wilches Castro; the list goes on, but there are people making exciting work all over the place right now!”

When asked about his take on the state of the business, Gillis feels similar to a lot of animation fans and professionals. “It’s a pretty scary landscape at the moment,” he admits. “Now that the streaming boom is settling down, we seem to be in the midst of a reevaluation of our industry. Plus, there’s the specter of AI looming on the horizon.”

Some Real Sweet Weirdos

However, he doesn’t want to be all doom and gloom. “As I said before, I think the amount of exciting, medium-pushing animation happening right now is extremely energizing,” Gillis adds. “There is really stunning work happening despite industry difficulties — Studio La Cachette and Green Street Pictures changed what I thought was possible in a TV production pipeline. Ever since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, animated features seem to be focused on establishing unique visual identities, and the work I’m seeing the youth make online blows my mind.”

This month, Gillis gets the chance to impress and entertain some younger fans’ minds with StuGo. “I hope they love the characters like we do!” he says. “Everyone works hard to keep the show surprising and entertaining — but it’s the characters that make the difference between a show that’s fun and a show you love and return to. And I think we got some real sweet weirdos in StuGo.”

Of course, we had to ask Gillis about the enigmatic title of the show: Does it stand for Student Government or something else? He responds: “Throughout the show, StuGo means different things to different characters. StuGo is whatever you want it to be!”

 

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StuGo premieres on Disney Channel on January 11 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, with new episodes premiering weekly thereafter on Sundays at 9 a.m. The series will be available on Disney+ later this spring.