Super Monsters Back to School

A horror director voiced the new kid at monster preschool

Gigi Saul Guerrero is not a Saturday-morning regular. She is a Mexico City-born filmmaker in Vancouver, the Luchagore co-founder who later directed Culture Shock for Blumhouse and Bingo Hell. In August 2019 Netflix still needed a voice for Vida Calavera, Lobo Howler's cousin, a sugar-skull kid from Ciudad Monstruo who can make plants grow. Guerrero did it. Super Monsters Back to School is the 23-minute special that moves Vida into Pitchfork Pines, walks her around town, and gets her through day one. IMDb logs Steve Ball as director. latestnetflix.com's read is that Wikipedia credits Corey Powell on the script and Quinn Lincoln and Daniel Rojas on animation direction.TV-Y. Netflix title 81006335. Date 16 August 2019.,,,

The Netflix Jr. Trailer is a backpack and a welcome committee. Drac, Cleo, Frankie, Katya, Zoe, Spike, Igor, Esmie, the whole night class. Elyse Maloway, Vincent Tong, and Erin Mathews still sit on the Netflix card as the billed names. Guerrero is eighth on TMDB's list. The special is Vida's move-in day. IMDb's logline is plainer. Lobo's cousin moves to town. He shows her his favorite places. School starts the next day.,,

Avi Arad sold action. Netflix wanted four-year-olds.

Deadline had the original pitch in October 2016. Avi Arad and 41 Entertainment sold Super Monsters as six preschoolers with dual identities, humans by day and monsters by night, kindergarten-readiness skills stuffed into each episode. Pitchfork Pines would open in 2017. It did, on 13 October. ICON Creative Studio in Vancouver animated it. The Hollywood Reporter framed the order as Netflix getting back in business with the Marvel Studios founder, next to Kong: King of the Apes and Tarzan and Jane.,,

The part the press kit skipped came later. Dominique Bazay, then Netflix's kids director, told Animation Magazine the thing started as a boys' action show for ages 6 to 11. The streamer saw a gap for kid-safe monsters and sent 41 Entertainment back to rethink it. Kindergarten readiness became the brief. Season 2 added Spike the dragon. Bazay teased another new monster at the end of that season. The specials then built a lane around Vida. Vida's First Halloween landed 4 October 2019. Dia de los Monsters sent the class to her hometown on 25 September 2020. Common Sense Media called the Halloween short a sweet cross-cultural lesson for age 4 and up. Discovery Family even put the series on linear TV on 19 October 2019. Three seasons, ten specials, and a sugar-skull cousin voiced by a gore director. The Marvel founder ended up in the preschool row. The new kid with the plant powers is how they sold August.,,