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When we last saw Disney+’s Monsters at Work protagonist Tylor Tuskman (voiced by Ben Feldman), he was made a jokester-in-training to help the Monsters, Incorporated plant generate more power from children’s laughter. After the company was saved from shutting down, he was transferred to the Laugh Floor as an official jokester and Val (Mindy Kaling) became his assistant. However, he soon begins to doubt his comedic talents and is tempted to work for the CEO of a rival company, Johnny Worthington III (Nathan Fillion).
The second season of the charming spinoff show, which premieres on Disney Channel this Friday, April 5, and on Disney+ on Sunday, May 5, promises to be another memorable ride with the gang we have all come to love from Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. and Monsters University movies and the first season of the show, which debuted in July of 2021.
Taking over the reins of the show for its sophomore outing are two-time Emmy-winning team of Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton, who worked together on such charming Disney projects as Prep & Landing, Prep & Landing: Stocking Stuffer, Olaf’s Frozen Christmas, The Ballad of Nessie, the Goofy short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater and features such as Tarzan and Brother Bear. The duo says they were thrilled when they were asked to develop some ideas for the second season of Monsters at Work. Deters is executive producer, while Wermers-Skelton is supervising director of the show. Colleen Evanson (DuckTales) is story editor and Melissa Kurtz (Planes: Fire & Rescue) is a producer.
“Stevie and I didn’t work on the first season, but we were big fans of it, so we got to peek at the inner workings of the show,” recalls Deters. “So, we revisited the movies and the first season and cooked up something that we’re very excited about. Of course, Stevie and I have worked together for a long time and know each other for so many years, and she was willing to tolerate me a little longer. We had a great time working on the second season’s 10 episodes together with the team here in Glendale and our vendor animation studio Icon (Alice’s Wonderland Bakery, Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures, Disney Junior’s Ariel) in Canada.”
Deters adds, “We have many of the actors from the first season back at work, with Ben Feldman and Mindy Kaling as Val Little, and they’re supported by Billy Crystal as Mike and John Goodman as Sulley. We found ways to bring in some of the other monsters that we haven’t seen in the show, particularly from Monsters University, we have Nathan Fillion back as Johnny Worthington the Third, Aubrey Plaza as Claire Wheeler and Bobby Moynihan as Chet Alexander.”
The terrific voice cast also includes Henry Winkler, Jennifer Coolidge, Rhys Darby, Janelle James, Jenifer Lewis, Ali Wong, Bowen Yang, Paula Pell, Danny Pudi, Jimmy Tatro, Danny Trejo, Joe Lo Truglio and Alan Tudyk.
Existential Dilemmas and More
Both Deters and Wermers-Skelton are tight-lipped about the details of the upcoming plotlines, but they do tell us that they were inspired by the existential angst they felt when they were both confined to their homes during the early days of the pandemic.
“What we really tried to do with this season was a deliver a serialized story,” explains Deters. “There are lots of great cliffhangers at the end of each episode. Obviously, we want people to keep watching and have them invested in what’s happening. So, there’s one overall story that’s told through the course of the 10 episodes. It was frankly inspired by the fact that we developed this during the pandemic. We were all in our homes, and were wondering whether the whole pandemic and lockdown was ever going to end. I always joked that maybe we should just get an RV and start driving. We kind of injected that angst into our main characters. Tyler, in particular, is at a crossroads as he’s offered a job elsewhere and gets to really embrace what he was made to do, which arguably to scare kids because he’s a big, scary monster!”
He adds, “We really wanted to tell stories that hopefully honor the spirit of the films and the first season. It was a lot of fun to continue the adventures of Tyler, Val and the other new characters we got to meet in the first year. Without spoiling any details, we further detail this friendship between Tyler and Val, which is really tested when Tyler is tempted to leave his job.”
“I love including all the surprises and little details we were able to put in there,” says Wermers-Skelton. “Personally, I just loved the experience of working on the show and working with the crew. They were all wonderful and fabulous, and I’d work with them again in a heartbeat.”
Deter notes, “We had a terrific writers’ group led by Colleen Evanson. Many of them came from the features’ world. We really wanted to delve deeply into the story, the characters and the themes in this collaborative way, and we had a lot of fun breaking the stories down over Zoom. Of course, that brought its own level of frustration, but we find ways to make it all entertaining because you are working with group of comedy writers who are very funny.”
The creative duo point out that they feel very fortunate to have been allowed to continue the stories of such beloved Pixar characters. Deters mentions, “Stevie and I have been lucky to know and work with a lot of our friends up at Pixar for many years. We both love the Monsters world, and want to do right by what’s been done there. I always sort of equated it to someone letting you play with their prized action figures and toys. So you want to be respectful and have fun with them, but then put them back unharmed back on the shelf. So, hopefully that’s what we’ve done here. We hope audiences will be entertained and enjoy getting to see the next phase in these characters’ lives. We want them to empathize with Tyler and Val’s struggles. We hope it’s all relatable, while at the same time they find it really funny and moving — all the great things that are hallmarks of the best Disney storytelling!”
The second season of Monsters at Work premieres with a special two-episode airing on Disney Channel and Disney XD Friday, April 5 at 8 p.m. It will then move to Saturdays with two new episodes launching each week at 10 a.m., leading up to the series’ steaming debut on Disney+ on Sunday, May 5.
