Hailey's On It! Creators Break Down Disney's Delightful New Series, Tease Future Episodes, and More
Disney just introduced fans to the delightful new comedy adventure series Hailey's On It!, which recently premiered on Disney Channel and debuts today on Disney+. The series focuses on a risk-averse but ever-resourceful teenager named Hailey Banks, who alongside her best friend Devin and a hilarious AI from the future Beta will attempt to complete her list of tasks to save the world. The talented duo of Nick Stanton and Devin Bunje are at the helm of the series, and while they've created and worked on a host of popular shows, Hailey's On It! Is the first time they've created and executive produced a project. ComicBook.com's Matthew Aguilar had the chance to talk to Nick and Devin all about the new series and how it came to be.
"Well, it really started from an idea that we had of, really a scene, and a version of that scene ended up in the first episode. But it was this idea that there was this regular 14-year-old girl and this crazy professor from the future burst in and basically lays out, or tries to lay out her entire destiny and these big things in the future and all this kind of stuff," Stanton said. "But the idea of that scene was, the conversation keeps getting distracted. They can never stay on topic, this girl's asking about who she goes to prom with and just these trivial things, and the dialogue just flowed from that."
"And from that scene, we built the building blocks of the series," Stanton said. "So who is this girl? And then we came up with the character of Hailey and talked about her. And then, well, what if she had a best friend, this neighbor, Scott DeNoga, who might be more than a friend? And so that came together, and then the character of Beta, who is their little phone helper in a Teddy bear's body, that came together. So it was just adding different ingredients to the soup, and eventually, we had a series."
The characters all quickly leap off the screen, a credit to the animators and character designs as well as the talented cast. Auli'i Cravalho brings Hailey to life, while Manny Jacinto is hilarious as Scott Denoga. Meanwhile Beta is comedic gold thanks to the work of Gary Anthony Williams.
"Yeah, some of it was luck and some of it was just fortunate-ness. We wrote the pilot first, that was how we set the series. Then when we went out for the first round of auditions, we were lucky enough to get both Auli'i and Manny to send in auditions, and we immediately fell in love with each of them for the role of Hailey and Scott," Bunje said.
"But then the pandemic shut down everything, and we were forced to pin the actual casting while we produced the pilot from our homes, and had to find actors to produce scratch versions, which are temporary voices. And we had to find actors that had literally home studios, that could do it from home because the recording studios were all closed. Luckily, one of those character actors was Gary, who was on our list of, let's Try them out, but we hadn't gotten them into the booth yet. So we brought them in to do the scratch for the pilot, and he blew our socks off just, right away with the way he did Beta. Now we can't imagine anyone different for that," Bunje said.
"But then when we actually got to cast the series, Auli'i was just... In her audition, it was immediately clear she got all the sweetness and relatability and vulnerability that we were craving for the character," Bunje said. "The one thing we wanted to kick the tires on was, in Moana, she was never really the punchline person. She never had to be the one to bring the comedy. So we put it... In her first time in the booth, we really kicked the tires to see if she could pull it off, and she did. She was hilarious and she's just gotten better since that first time."
"And then, speaking on Manny, yeah, he's sort of like a unicorn of comedy," Bunje said. "He's just so funny, his rhythms, his comedy timing is just so unique and just hilarious. He just brings a ton to the character, and as you said, now we couldn't imagine anyone else being Scott."
The show plays with time travel and future elements, but it was important for the team to implement those elements without letting them take everything over. That said, fans will see some crossover from the present day to the future and vice versa.
"Well, I can say that... the professor is a character who's voiced by Sarah Chalk, does return, throughout the first season even," Stanton said. "I'm not going to spoil how it happens, but one thing that we do think is cool... Because we never wanted it to be a time travel show. We thought, the formula that works in our minds is grounded, relatable characters in the real world, and then this fantastic stuff happens to them."
"So we've done some episodes that are coming up, which maybe something from the future comes to present day. We have an episode that pays homage to some other classic sci-fi shows where a cute little thing called a squeeple, which it exists like 3000 years in the future, comes. Hailey gets a hold of one, and it's a cute pet until it multiplies, and then that multiplies and then it needs to eat, and it becomes this sort of B movie parody that ends up at, they have to stop them all at a drive-in movie screening. So we love that, where it's future craziness coming to the present day," Stanton said.
You can watch the first episode of Hailey's On It! now on Disney+, and new episodes will hit Disney Channel every week, followed by the episode releasing on Disney+ the next day.
What have you thought of the series? Let us know in the comments!