Harvey Guillen On (Playing) Mickey Mouse Funhouse

What We Do in the Shadows veteran Harvey Guillén isn’t just appearing in the upcoming Disney Channel series Mickey Mouse Funhouse — he is the funhouse. As Funny the Funhouse, Guillén steps into an archetype that has become familiar to kids’ shows; he will play the all-knowing, seemingly-inanimate object that can help the heroes figure out whatever they ned to know. Whether it’s Toodles from The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or the backpacks from the world of Dora and Diego, Funny fits right in, tranforming to go on adventures even when it seems like having somebody as big as a house (literally) by your side could be hard.

Guillén has said that working in the world of Disney is a dream job for him, and he told ComicBook that he is still a little incredulous. Bouncing off a character like Donald Duck, he says, is never going to stop being at least a little bit crazy.

“The idea is that Mickey’s house become a spaceship, or a boat, or whatever the situation is,” Guillén said.

And, yes, it occurred to him — albeit not at first — that there is an outside chance that the character he plays could end up being a free-standing structure at a Disney park.

“I didn’t [think about that] at first,” Guillén admitted. “But yeah, who wouldn’t want to be a part of something like that?”

It might seem like Guillén is about as far away from his What We Do in the Shadows role as possible, but he concedes that they both have a sense of grandness and over-the-top energy that makes them a little bit complementary. It also stretches a little bit different muscles, since while Shadows is a little looser, the nature of the Mickey animation is that there’s little room for riffing.

“We’re pretty tight to the script,” Guillén admitted. “But that’s easy because it’s such a fun show.”

Mickey Mouse Funhouse debuted on July 16, with a special episode titled “Mickey The Brave,” which you can see above. The series will formally premiere with back-to-back episodes (each featuring two stories, in what has become the typical kids’ TV format) on Friday, August 20 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on both Disney Channel and Disney Junior.