Geekscape Interviews: ‘Fish Hooks’ Noah Jones and Maxwell Atoms
Geekscape writer Allison interviews Noah Jones and Maxwell Atoms from Fish Hooks!
So, tell me a little about what you’re working on now.
Noah Jones: Well, my name is Noah Jones and I am the creator and one of the executive producers of Fishhooks on the Disney Channel and this is Maxwell Atoms, the other executive producer. We’re in our third season of Fishhooks. We’re really excited about where the show has been and where it’s going. There are lots of fun, exciting, fishing adventures in store ahead.
How did you guys come up with this idea?
NJ: I was illustrating children’s books out of my house on the coast of Maine and one day I got a call from one of the executives at Disney and they said, “Hey, we saw your characters online, we really like them, do you want to pitch us some shows?” And I’m, you know, working out of my house on the coast of Maine, so I’m like, “What are the chances that anything will ever come of this?” So I say, “Sure, of course, I’ll pitch you a show! Why not?” and a week later I sent in five ideas and one of them was these little fish characters Milo, Bea, and Oscar. Originally they were a punk rock band of fish, but they were like, “We actually don’t like the punk rock angle, but we love the designs of the fish.” – they were these crazy jellybean colors— so we kinda started from there.
From there we did a short and the whole time we were working on the short, I was thinking, “This isn’t ever going to go anywhere.” You know, I’ve been around for a while, I’ve worked on a couple projects fall through so that I never got too excited about it, but they’re like, “Hey, short’s testing really well. Do you want to do a pilot?” And I’m like, “Okay, why not?” So we did a pilot episode and the whole time I’m still living in Maine and they said, “Just so you know, the pilot’s testing really well and we might make it into a series and if we did, would you move your family out to Los Angeles?” So I said, “Let me talk to my wife and see what she thinks about it.”
She thought it was a great idea because Maine was cold and rainy and so we had a one and a half year old son and my wife was seven months pregnant with our second child when we moved out to California. She had never been there before, and it was this really weird kinda way to get into Hollywood. Like Disney put this amazing team of directors, artists, and writers together, Maxwell was at the head of that and he has tons of TV experience and they put me in very good hands. And that’s how this show thing started.
Has Comic-Con been really crazy for you this year?
NJ: I remember last year at Comic-Con, I was nervous. We had a panel and I was afraid that nobody would show up, you know? It would be us two jerks just sitting there at the table going, “Hey, we’ll answer any questions that anybody has,” but there’s nobody there to ask us any questions. But we filled the room and that was a pretty good feeling. It was like 2,000 people, and it’s nice to know that you’re connecting with somebody. We signed posters afterwards and the line was so long it was snaking across the court and we actually ran out of posters. Part of that was we actually just came from the panel with Chelsea Kane and people adore her—she’s the voice of Bea.
MA: We ended up last year with some of the actors just walking around the floor and checking it out and then about five minutes into it, the job just became protecting Chelsea.
NJ: It was like a thousand Batmans and Boba Fetts and here she was just in the middle of all of that.
I noticed that the animation style changes from outside the fish tank and inside the fish tank. What was behind that divide in design?
NJ: When we were first talking to Disney about doing the show seriously, they told us that they wanted us to do something that was different visually and totally from what else was on the channel, so this kind of collage-style was something that I came up with very early on. I just took a picture of a fish tank and put out a chair and put it in the middle of it and dropped one of my fish on it. And it looked so funny. It was so funny seeing this dumb googly-eyed thing in the middle of this realistic environment. We carried that through. And one thing we are trying to do is to get back to a simpler background style. Naturally as the show has gone on a lot of things have changed and evolved and there are some kinds of simpler things about the earlier episodes that I want to get back to. I think it’s funnier. The stupider it is, the funnier it is, as far as the look goes. Visually we can make it look really goofy, and I think that works the best.
MA: The photo collage was something we kinda had to experiment with just because it was really intensive with all of the Photoshop the artists had to do. At first we didn’t do too many of those, but I think everybody got up to speed and knows how to handle it now.
NJ: The animation studio, Mercury Filmworks, up in Canada, they’re really good at animating those photo collage characters, so once we figured out they were good at it, we’re like, “Oh, yeah, we’re going to do that a lot more.” I think we’re all very proud about the show in general, but also about how it looks. It does look very different, it does kind of plant a flag in the sand in a kind of a benchmark on how something could be visually interesting.
Do you have any plans on the series going forward? Any hints you can give us?
MA: Like I said, we’re in our third season working on pre-production. We’ve got a really good second season finale—fish prom.
NJ: The theme of the prom is ‘Under the Sea’. That’s brilliant, right? [laughter]
But, really, we just watched the final picture this week and it came together really well. The story is there, the heart is there, there are some emotional moments. And it’s really funny.
MA: I don’t want to give anything away, but the fans will be really excited to see what happens to the characters.
Are they ever going to go to college?
NJ: Yes. There is Fish University.
If they go to Fish University, what classes would they take?
NJ: Fish Physics. Fish American Literature. Fish Film Theory. I’m trying to think of stupid fish classes.
Which subject would each of the main characters major in?
NJ: Milo would major in Fish Partying and Fish Video Games. And Bea would do theater.
That’s been more of a trend in recent years of fan-interaction. Have you been using that more as the show has progressed?
NJ: I think it’s something we’re all aware of. We’re aware of the internet, and it’s the giant beast that’s constantly breathing down your neck and like analyzing every single moment of the show and line of dialogue. And we do put things in there to kind of feed that beast.
MA: Well, we honestly try not to do that most of the time.
NJ: But there are things that we’ve read on the internet that are completely wrong fan theories that I feel that we’ve tipped our hat to, but in our own way because it amuses us. Like, somehow it got out that Milo and Oscar’s last name is “Fishtooth” but it’s not. We’ve never ever said their last name, but the entire internet is under the impression that that’s their last name.
MA: So they sort of make up these fictional identities in one of the episodes and that’s the last name they use.
NJ: Fishtooth. Yeah, we don’t know where that came from.
Have you ever read any fan-fiction on the internet and thought “Wow, this is so insane” or “Wow, this is so brilliant, I wish I could use it”?
NJ: Mostly it’s the insane part. And also, partly “how does somebody have this much time?” But I love that they’re that passionate about the show. Someone theorized that one of the first episodes was called “Pizza Cave” –I don’t know where that came from— and the kids go to a cave to get pizza. And that’s something that I loved the idea of—a pizza cave!
