Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen discuss their stop-motion kids’ series, based on their ‘Shapes’ picture books, that is funny and honest about sentient geometric solids without sneaking in ‘lessons’ or ‘messages;’ premieres August 29 on Apple TV+.
Most shows geared toward children are built around some kind of lesson or overarching message: learn to share, show kindness, be brave, don’t eat the worms you dig up from the ground.
You know, the usual.
But when it came to , creators Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen took a different approach.“Adults are lecturing children all the time — it’s one of the most annoying things about being a kid,” says Barnett.
“I don’t think books or shows — art made for children's enjoyment — should be vessels for sneaking in lessons.We don’t start with a message — we begin with the goal of making a good story: a funny, honest, soulful story that explores what it means to be a human… or a sentient geometric solid.” The stop-motion animated series, based on the picture book trilogy by Barnett and Klassen, invites viewers to join serious Square, intrepid Circle, and tricky Triangle as they dig up some fun, search for answers, and build on their friendship — all while learning how to navigate each other’s differences.Season 2 premieres all eight episodes today, August 29, on Apple TV+ featuring the voices of Yvette Nicole Brown as the narrator, Harvey Guillén as Square, Scott Adsit as Triangle, and Gideon Adlon as Circle.
Barnett and Klassen serve as executive producers alongside Kelli Bixler and Drew Hodges of Bix Pix Entertainment.Ryan Pequin serves as co-executive producer and head writer.Watch the Season 2 trailer: “There are some really great episodes in this one,” notes Klassen of the new season.
“There's one where our narrator, the great Yvette Nicole Brown, doesn't think our main characters are doing anything interesting that day, so she wanders off and has the camera focus on a bug on a plant.She becomes a nature documentarian instead.There's another one that will hopefully make the animators in the audience chuckle, where the whole idea was to have one of the puppets just not move at all for a whole episode, so Triangle makes a bet that he can stand still and, of course, he goes insane.” While is based on Klassen and Barnett’s book trilogy, the concept actually started with an idea for a video game. “I'd had an idea for a video game ages ago with a Lemmings-style structure where these shapes were at war with each other,” shares Klassen.
“But I wanted you to feel neutral about all the sides, making them as basic as possible design-wise, so they were just triangles, squares and circles.I didn't want you to root for anyone in particular.The game didn't work out, but Mac and I picked the idea up much later and developed them as singular characters before the specific stories that are in the books were decided on.” He adds, “We'd never started a project like that, and, in our minds, the broader approach lent itself really well to a bigger series of stories.
To us, the books felt like moments in a larger journey.” Both authors say they always suspected, or at least hoped, they’d see their characters in a TV show and, once the books were released, immediately started working on what a TV series might look like.“The material felt very suited to an ongoing property,” says Klassen.“And we both had experience in film and tv, so we were aware that things got made into shows… sometimes.” As it turns out, Apple TV and Bix Pix Entertainment saw the same potential in Circle, Triangle and Square and noted what an animated series could do to enhance the characters of Klassen and Barnett’s books. “It allows for new dimensions to the characters and the world to be explored,” says Hodges, director and executive producer with Bix Pix Entertainment.
“You get to see how Circle, Square and Triangle think and interact with each other in so many new ways with all the subtle facets of their personalities brought out with their clear movement and voice performances.For the second season, we got to really show off each character’s uniqueness and deep personalities.” Hodges continues, “In episodes like ‘Circle’s New Roommate/The Frog Off,’ we got to show how they all live and the choices they make in every aspect of their lives.Seeing each character deal with and adapt to each other’s choices is what made it all so much fun.
Viewing Triangle’s life through the eyes of Circle heightened all his messy chaotic charm when contrasted with her chill calm.And allowing each character to exhibit their favorite things to a visiting frog meant pushing quirks and tics into whole new exaggerated territory.” As Hodges notes, voice acting, alongside animation, played a huge role in bringing to life and creating a connection between the characters and their fans. “A lot of the show's happy accidents began with the voice recordings,” says Barnett.“We have a terrific cast of gifted comic actors, and we tended to favor line reads with a little stumble or laugh or mistake.
The animators then incorporated those quirks into the performance, and the result are these thrilling moments that feel improvised.My son, who was born a week before we started writing Season 1, became obsessed with Yvette Nicole Brown’s voice.When she was recording, he would crawl into the room to listen for hours.
It’s a testament to Nicole’s massive talent, obviously, but it was also this confirmation that we were making something special.” Brown actually has an episode entirely dedicated to her in Season 2. “In ‘Narrator’s Big Day’ we introduce a whole new natural world that was created using many different scales,” says Hodges.“We’re especially proud of one very long shot that moves from a wide shot of the whole island into an extreme close-up of a single leaf.An incredible amount of coordination and planning had to happen to make that shot seem effortlessly seamless, but it was the only way to really show that in a vast world of wonders even the smallest leaf is special and holds a story worth telling.” Visuals that seem effortless in this show often mask many hours, days, and months of painstaking work.
Everyone on the production team, at this point, has a strong handle on the nature of the animated series.But it took a while to get there. “Making pictures in a beloved book series come to life is a huge responsibility and we wanted to get it right,” says Hodges.“Every subtle detail of the design and performances had to be labored over because the style of the show meant there was never anywhere to hide.
In the books, there is a lot of negative space on the page that the reader gets to fill in with their imagination.The books convey so much with very few images.But we had to fill that space with physical sets and props.
We had to generate millions of images while maintaining the same level of collaboration that the books had between the authors and the audience.And we have so many more props to work with in Season 2.” Klassen says that the crew was “really hitting their stride” in Season 2 and hopes it comes through in the animation and the stories.While Season 3 hasn’t been confirmed, Klassen notes there’s no shortage of stories. “Mostly what we were trying to build was a group of characters and a place that would be continually appealing and fun to go back to, and a setup where story possibilities came (somewhat) easily,” says Klassen.
“Three characters seemed like a great way to set this up because with three you can have betrayals, shifting allegiances, solo moments, on and on.”
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
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