Nick Jr. spoke with the creator's of The Upside Down Show to talk about their new show on Noggin. Here's what David and Shane had to say.
Tell us how you got your start in acting and comedy.
It was an obvious road for the two of us really. Dave was forced into performing Gilbert and Sullivan musicals at the age of 11. And Shane got his comedy grounding working in an office.
Where did the idea for the show come from?
A stack of little and not so little books, filled with ideas the two of us have been compiling for 15 years. It was just a matter of leafing through with Sesame's brilliant Kurt Mueller and Belinda Ward and finding the ideas that would lend themselves to both kids and adults looking at the TV and thinking "What the heck is going on?!"
How are the physical comedy and sound effects important to the show?
Integral. Without them there would be no show. The thing is, kids do sound effects and physical comedy all the time. Have you ever seen a kid eat spaghetti?
How is doing a kids show different from doing a show for grownups?
We are allowed to jump on the couch in a show for grownups. And there are fewer decapitations in a kids show.
You also worked on the show Maisy. How is working on this show different?
On Maisy we would spend our time only in the recording studio, creating all the character voices and sound effects for each of the 106 episodes. Very relaxing actually, almost like a holiday. On Upside, we work from the ground up. Whipping ourselves within an inch of our lives. From the initial meetings about the direction of the episode, to the rehearsal room, to the studio floor, to the recording studio, to the editing room, to the wrap party, to therapy.
How are the two characters--Shane and David--different from each other?
While both characters are given to unbridled flights of fancy, David can be easily distracted from the task at hand while Shane does his best to keep things on track. The characters are a little stylized from the everyday Shane and Dave. The real Shane and Dave wouldn't dress like that. Dave's more into polka dots and Shane has a penchant for sequence. And we would almost certainly wear less make-up on a day-to-day basis.
How did you come up with the idea of the remote control?
We have a theater show called Speedmouse, which we made into a DVD. One of the main plot points is that the remote to the show is lost somewhere in the theatre. We are not in control of the show anymore and are constantly being FF'd, rewound, paused etc. We thought this could easily be translated to kids TV, and it gets the kids more involved in the show. Watching them point their imaginary remote at the screen and the joy they get out of controlling us is priceless.
In every episode you visit a different place for the first time. Are there any places you wanted to visit in the show but haven't?
There is always some place to go. Just use your imagination. Looking around the room now I can see I'd like to go under the bed, into the iPod, into the mirror. That'd be fun... what's in a mirror? More of the same?
Tell us a bit about the show's curriculum.
Our curriculum is simple. Make both adults and kids guffaw like fools, and more often than not, at the same time. We're bringing our adult comedy sensibility to the kids. We'd like not to treat the adults like adults and certainly not to treat the kids like kids. A middle ground is hit where everyone feels equal.
What do you hope kids will take away from the show?
A sense of wonder about every object, every sound, every person they come across. With a little imagination, everything doesn't have to be as it seems. Sorry, that's what we'd like the adults to take away from the show--the kids already do that.
