How ‘Monsters at Work’ Keeps the ‘Monsters, Inc.’ Magic Alive
Exclusive
They don’t make kids programming like they used to. It used to be that nearly every animated kids title came with jokes for the adults to get and the kids to grow into, in addition to age-appropriate gags and life lessons for the younger viewers. Nowadays, kids programming doesn’t seem to reflect a belief that young viewers can get a well-written joke. But that’s not the case with Monsters at Work.
The Disney animated series, which debuts its second season on Friday, April 5 on Disney Channel and Friday, May 5 on Disney+, has original Monsters, Inc. stars Billy Crystal and John Goodman voicing Mike Wazowski and Sulley once more. Crystal tells TV Insider that the little green guy (who he calls “CBS walking”) is his favorite character he’s ever played. Crystal and his co-stars all sang the praises of this series to TV Insider, saying it’s a genuinely well made workplace comedy. And its cast, which boasts Superstore‘s Ben Feldman, The Office‘s Mindy Kaling, Archer‘s Aisha Tyler, and more, knows a thing or two about workplace comedies. This is no “watered down” spinoff of an iconic movie, Feldman says. The proof of its quality is in the cast.
In addition to Mike and Sulley, Monsters at Work features Monsters, Inc. original characters Celia Mae (Mike’s snake-haired love, voiced by Roxana Ortega) and Roz and her sister, Roze (voiced by original voice actor Bob Peterson). Season 1 brought Feldman, Kaling, Tyler, Henry Winkler, Alanna Ubach, Bonnie Hunt, and Lucas Neff into the fold. And in Season 2, Monsters University characters will come back for more. Saturday Night Live alum Bobby Moynihan returns as the fan-favorite Chet. Nathan Fillion is the dapper Johnny Worthington, now Mike and Sulley’s business rival who’s trying to poach Feldman’s Tylor from Monsters Incorporated. And Aubrey Plaza is back in her perfectly cast role as goth girl Claire Wheeler.
While the main cast regrets not being able to record the episodes together in a voiceover studio (they’ve never gotten together as a group, but hope to), recording remotely opened the door to a jaw-dropping list of guest stars. Jennifer Coolidge, Bowen Yang, Rhys Darby, Paula Pell, Janelle James, Jenifer Lewis, Ali Wong, Alan Tudyk, Danny Pudi, Cody Rigsby, Jimmy Tatro, Danny Trejo, and Joe Lo Truglio will all be heard in the new episodes. Pixar’s most familiar voice, John Ratzenberger, also returns as the voice of Tylor’s dad, Bernard Tuskmon. Tyler voices Tylor’s mom, Tilly.
Disney
At the center of it all is Feldman’s Tylor (the panicked, purple, horned monster above). Tylor was was Monsters University’s record-setting scarer when he got offered a job on the scare floor right before graduation. Unfortunately for this scary dude, his first day on the job was the day after the climax of Monsters, Inc., when the company switched from collecting children’s screams to laughs as Monstropolis’ energy source. Try as he might, Tylor is painfully unfunny. Feldman finds humor in his character’s cringe.
“He’s a bumbling idiot,” the Mad Men alum lovingly says, “which somehow has been my area of expertise thus far in my career.” Feldman says the Monsters at Work creators “were watching episodes of Superstore while they were writing” purely for entertainment, but he sees a lot of similarities between the hapless Jonah and the struggling Tylor, similarities seemingly inspired by him. “I don’t know what that says about me and my wife and family,” he jokes.
Monsters at Work‘s jokes are what made Kaling sign on to voice Val, Tylor’s self-proclaimed work bestie turned actual bestie, in the first place. The Mindy Project alum and writer says there’s a real respect for comedy writing that elevates this series from your average kids TV.
“So much of kids programming is incredibly deadening to watch when you’re an adult,” the mom of two says with a laugh. “Ben and I both come from big sitcoms, and we are used to a level of joke writing that’s smart and fun. When I watch [Monsters at Work] with my kids, I’m always delighted that the writer’s room is a writer’s room for a grownup sitcom, but they’re writing really wholesome, fun stuff for kids.”
She recalls a vending machine explosion fiasco in Season 1 that make her kids, ages 6 and 3, laugh to no end. These big visuals aren’t something that her live-action TV workplace comedies could do. “I think what the show does really well is take these things that are very relatable in an office and then just max them out in a really great way that only a cartoon could,” she says, adding that kids will find this show hilarious because “they’re obsessed with the idea of going to work. Kids don’t get to do that, so it’s mysterious and fun to them even though it’s incredibly mundane.”
Monsters, Inc. first graced our screens in 2001. Monsters at Work begins the day after the film plot ends. Crystal reveals the key to keeping Mike funny after this 23-year gap.
“His energy,” Crystal says without missing a beat. “You’ve been around people who think they’re really funny, but they’re not, but they keep trying. And in the first season, he had this comedy class that always didn’t work very well for him, but he’s an expert. I just think that he’s a believer, and he loves to feel like he’s in charge and feels that he is independent, but he really needs Sulley every second.”
“He’s very optimistic and doesn’t let anything disappoint him for too long,” Crystal continues. As we know, not even having his face blocked by a magazine barcode or a TV logo can get this one-eyed guy down. Mike’s “more than slight” level of delusion is what keeps him endearing, according to Crystal, who’s always humbled by fans asking him to talk like Mike.
While Pixar doesn’t create this spinoff, the studio’s magic lives on through Crystal and Goodman’s vocal performances. Just like with the first film, the Monsters at Work animators incorporated its cast’s mannerisms in the recording booth into their character’s physical behaviors. This helps make the characters feel real, and in every installment of this franchise has resulted in some splendid improvisations being animated into the final cut (Crystal confirms that Mike and Sulley’s “put that thing back where it came from, or so help me” song was completely improvised).
Tyler and Moynihan, who have some of the most extensive voiceover credits of the entire cast, tell us how their characters come to life in the booth.
“If they have art of what the character looks like, I try to physically look like it or stand like it because that it feels like regular acting, like I’m in its body,” says Moynihan. “That way when I do something different and I’m standing a different way, it feels different and I don’t sound the same.”
Moynihan adores Chet for “his teeth, his weird little round body,” and the fact that he’s such “a loyal idiot.”
Bobby Moynihan’s Chet in Monsters at Work Season 2 (Disney)
Tyler, who voiced Lana on Archer for 14 seasons, had to keep her characters organized while recording Season 1. Monsters at Work‘s debut season and the final season of Archer were being recorded around the same time. Lana and Tilly couldn’t be more different.
“Lana is very Type A, highly motivated career woman. She has put everything on hold to focus on her work,” Tyler explains. “But also she’s an international spy, so you’re just kind of thinking ‘don’t get shot’ and also ‘get back across the border before someone suspects a thing.’ Tilly is just worried about whether Tylor’s lunch has been made and that he’s successful at work and how the shop is doing.”
“They’re both carers, but one is using a gun and one is using Lunchables,” she adds with a laugh.
As Moynihan shares, Monsters University opened the franchise up “to millions of characters that you can enjoy.” That said, he’d love to hear former SNL co-stars Kenan Thompson and Maya Rudolph voicing some monsters (“Kenan is a big, happy monster. Kenan is Sulley”).
Tyler wishes an Archer co-star could take part. “The late, great Jessica Walter being someone who had such an incredible effect on me as a performer and also as a person, having her voice of character would mean that she was still with us, so that would be a dream,” she says. “Amber Nash is a pretty extraordinary voice actor,” she adds of another Archer co-star.
Crystal wants Danny DeVito and Robert De Niro to join in on the fun. De Vito “would have a great voice for it,” he says. He’s keen to find out “what interesting character they’d make with Bob’s voice.”
One character we won’t be seeing in Monsters at Work is Boo. But Crystal shares his thoughts on what he and Goodman think she’s up to nowadays.
“I think of her as Wendy in Peter Pan,” he says, a happy twinkle in his eye, “that she’s grown up, maybe she’s 30 now. I hope she has kids of her own and is telling them about these wonderful characters that she met in this world that she got to go to, like Never Never Land, and maybe we can get to go there, too. And hoping someday that Sulley comes to get her again. That’s what we’ve thought about.”
As long as people love Mike, Crystal will happily keep playing him. “I’d hate to say goodbye to him forever.” So would we.
Monsters at Work, Season 2 Premieres Friday, April 5, 8/7c, Disney Channel, Available Friday, May 5, Disney+
