Dead End: Paranormal Park Gives off Queer Gravity Falls Vibes

In Netflix’due south new blithe series
Dead End: Paranormal Park, Barney — a immature teen male child with an electric blue ombre — and his canis familiaris Pugsley move into a haunted amusement park where they brainstorm working (and fighting monsters) alongside Norma, a fellow teen-turned-friend.

It sounds typical enough for a genre kids’ cartoon, nonetheless
Expressionless Cease —
a colorful trip into the pains and joys of teenhood as its master trio battles demons, ghosts and their insecurities — isn’t typical for animation.

The 10-episode adventure stars a racially-, gender- and sexuality-diverse cast, with the principal ensemble led by voice actors Zach Barack (the MCU’due south first openly trans player) as Barney, Kody Kavitha as Norma, Alex Brightman every bit Pugsley, Emily Osment as demon Courtney, and Clinton Leupp a.k.a. Miss Coco Peru as the park’s big-haired founder Pauline Phoenix, among others. It also features guest voice appearances by Alan Cumming, Angelica Ross, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Patrick Stump, Sam Jay, Taylor “Effy” Gibson and more.

Beyond its bandage stacked total of LGBTQ+ talent, the show is a byproduct of blitheness’due south growing interest in the webcomics space, a free market where inclusion of all kinds has seen success. This particular genre-cracking — and history-making — accommodation comes from the mind of Hamish Steele and their webcomic-turned-print graphic novel,
DeadEndia.

It’s a story that’s delivered not simply i of animation’south first openly trans leading characters with Barney, but a host of other representation, all tucked into a teen-ish cartoon series equal parts comedy, horror and coming of historic period.

Ahead of the first flavor,The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Steele nearDead Cease’s approach to mental health and LGBTQ representation, doing horror in an all-ages kids show, that Patrick Stump musical episode, hopes for more seasons, and how writing one of the characters led to their own autism diagnosis.

Dead End
feels like a immature adult show, but that’s rare in blitheness. Was that what you were going for, and how did you lot approach this new territory if so?

It makes me so happy that you chosen it YA because that realm didn’t be until recently. We pitched the bear witness in 2019, and we were developing it in 2018, and that realm didn’t really exist. There was some stuff like
Infinity Railroad train, but even those shows, you had to pitch them [younger]. The characters in the books were a little fleck older when I wrote them, and then to pitch it, nosotros aged them downwardly. Merely over the form of developing the testify, we pushed them dorsum upwardly to 16 to 17. Before making the show, I’d adult quite a few shows, and I love kids’ shows 100 percent, so we try to go far so that there’s nothing in the show that is inappropriate for an 8-year-sometime. But I call back there’s an age group that cartoons just sort of abandoned for a long time, and assumed that when you get to about 12 or 13, yous’re merely watching developed shows. That’due south fine; there’due south a lot of developed programming that’southward proficient. Simply at that place’s then much stuff that happens before so that’s such an of import role of your life, and the thought that people will jump from
Steven Universe
to
Euphoria
— that’southward such a huge jump. YA has been used for so long in books and graphic novels, and this existence an adaptation of my graphic novels, it feels actually nice to be allowed to say that information technology’southward a YA kids’ prove.

The horror elements helped reinforce this equally a YA bear witness versus a show for younger children. There’s that opening sequence that uses a specific horror technique and a bevy of animated monsters. How did you arroyo the horror knowing your audience would exist wide?

One thing we realized really early on on is that, what historic period range finds stuff scary doesn’t make any sense. Before we did a writers room, we went to a theme park during Halloween as inquiry, and one thing we talked about was a family unit in forepart of u.s. during 1 of those interactive horror escape rooms. There was a 6 or 7-year-old, and they were loving every second, laughing and clapping. And then there was a 12 or 13-year-old, and they were clinging to their parents. Early on, when we talked about the horror in this, talking almost age ranges, I e’er thought this is a testify for spooky kids or kids that like horror. So the reasoning behind that opening infinitesimal of episode ane is that it’south kind of a test for the audience. I call up it’due south the scariest fleck in the series. If you tin can get past that, you’ll be fine with everything else. Some episodes are horror, and some are pure comedy, then we tried to put that all into that opening minute — a little promise of what’s to come.

This originated as a webcomic, a medium known for stretching on a bit as at that place’s no actual folio or time limit when producing them. How did you lot think about adapting your story for season ane with potentially endless textile?

When I wrote the webcomic, I did think of information technology every bit having an end as I did always desire to publish it somehow. The main difference is that I wrote the webcomic completely on my own, pretty much making it up as I went along. (Laughs.) I definitely knew fundamental story beats I needed to get to, but filled in the middle. It’due south ane of the things I honey about webcomics — they react to the audience in real-time. A expert example is Logs, who becomes a big character and Barney’due south dear interest. He was never really intended to exist. He was only a security guard on one folio, but that page was far more popular than previous pages, then I expanded the role.

The main thing I was and then excited virtually with making the show was collaboration. When I got into the writers’ room with all these very talented writers who all had their own points of view, I think information technology would be very featherbrained of me to assume that the style I told the story when I was 21, making information technology upward equally I went forth for a webcomic, was the best way to tell the story. And so perchance if a dissimilar studio had said, “Hey, we want to buy your volume and plow it into something, merely you’re not going to have a say on what it is,” I would have told them to stick to the story much closer. But getting paid to go along making stories in this world with such amazing other talents, I wanted to push everything into new directions.

This was as well turned into a Drawing Hangover brusk, with a different voice bandage chosen before the manufacture had made information technology a more standard practice to ensure the identities of voice actors matched their characters. How were things different this fourth dimension with Netflix?

The original short was an incredible opportunity. I was completely unknown, and Cartoon Hangover had just put up a call for submissions on Tumblr, then I sent them a storyboard and they loved it. I was mostly in charge of the storyboard and getting the show finished. When information technology came to casting, I had some say, but they took a lot of it out of my hands. They gave me these people and said, “They’re good; we trust them.” Baby me, not wanting to rock the gunkhole, did mostly say, “Yes, sure.” I think the casts are really expert, and I don’t want to diminish them. Just it was something I’d thought most for a long time, and I always knew that if we got the chance to make the new show, I would want to recast them. Betwixt the short and the new bear witness, the whole comic book had happened, and the characters have changed and evolved. They got a bit younger. They had slightly different vibes. I don’t even think it was like something I had to enquire Netflix, necessarily, simply we all seemed to be on the same page that we would cast information technology authentically. I as well got to have a petty say in making sure that even in the dubs, we tried our best to cast authentically.

You’ve got a great musical episode that you crafted with the help of Fall Out Boy’s pb vocalizer Patrick Stump. How did that collaboration come together?

The musical episode was written in the same time it took to write all the other nine episodes, and we were writing information technology at the aforementioned time as nosotros were casting, so we kept adjusting to focus on the strongest singers. Essentially, I wrote all the lyrics, merely we didn’t know who would score it. We did recall about Julian Guidetti, who is our composer for the rest of the show. He does an amazing job, just his plate was too full, so nosotros auditioned people. On that list was Patrick Stump. I was really worried most working with someone who was a star. I idea they might be a diva or might take as well much control. Just from day one of auditioning, Patrick over-delivered and was e’er the perfect collaborator. He was so patient, and he kept wanting to push it. We added an extra vocal because he was so into it. Originally, Pugsley didn’t have a song considering nosotros kept auditioning people. He was merely going to accept a few lines in the opening song.

But when we bandage Alex, who sings both in that kind of gravelly Beetlejuice vox and his normal singing voice, I was like: Nosotros need to do a duet between Pugsley and [demon king] Temeluchus. So that song was written in peradventure ii or three days. There was an orchestra recording that [Stump] conducted, and he directed all of the singing besides, which was funny because the actors were given the demos two weeks earlier they recorded, and I know for Zach, Fall Out Boy was his first concert. So he was similar, “It’s an honor, sir.” (Laughs.) Alex was similar, “I learned how to sing by learning how you sing.” And Patrick was always very apprehensive. He doesn’t mind me saying this, but I think Emily said, “Wow, you’re such a good vocalizer. Do you do information technology full-time?” They didn’t really believe he was doing it. (Laughs.) But he’s done work on a Disney Jr. Spider-Man show, so he’s in this realm.

Barney is a trans teen fleeing dwelling and having to reside in a zany amusement park. It speaks partly to the experiences of existent trans adolescents, a asymmetric percentage of which make up the U.S. runaway and unhoused teen population. Only you are couching that inside a comedy-horror show. How did you balance this tonally to exist sensitive to what’s happening but also play to the adventure element and a younger audience, who might understand it differently?

It is definitely the element of the show that nosotros worked on the hardest, and I think changed pretty constantly while writing the pilot. There were versions of the airplane pilot which were much more harrowing, I suppose? We originally ended the pilot with footage of cop cars exterior his business firm and his parents crying. So we did versions that were far lighter and tried to soften the fact he was running away from home as much as possible to make information technology seem more like an chance. One of the big changes is that in the book, he is fully running abroad from dwelling, and it’s treated a little differently. For the testify, it was realizing that, potentially, parents will exist watching it with their children. And then we wanted there to exist lessons for the parents equally well as the kids. Nosotros tried not to make his parents monsters or the most accepting family ever. They’re in a middle ground that I think a lot of people notice themselves in, where they retrieve they’re saying all the right things, but they’re non doing all the correct things. They’ve kind of dropped the ball a little scrap on unconditional love. It took the states a lot of work, and it was a lot of the parents in the writers’ room who were vouching for the mum and dad characters.

I take a bully relationship with my mum and dad, but in the webcomic, I was writing the parents every bit these kind of offscreen monsters. Information technology’s something we tweaked, and this is sort of jumping ahead, but function of the story is that Barney did do kind of a wrong matter by running away and not telling everyone. Simply he does apologize for it and suffers the consequences because his life’s in danger every episode. Whereas his parents don’t apologize directly abroad, and they don’t meet what the trouble is. I don’t know if Barney’due south parents are really transphobic — I think the testify put some nuance to that — merely it’s sometimes harder to debate with people who call up of themselves every bit the best allies ever. Sometimes the accusation of bigotry is seen as far more than toxic than the discrimination itself. Information technology’s quite relatable, and information technology’s an element I’1000 very proud of. I love that so many shows exist in worlds that don’t have homophobia or transphobia, and they let queer characters be free and have fun. I call up that’s a super valid way of telling stories, specially in kids’ media. But I also call back it’south important to tell stories that treat that bigotry equally the serious issue that information technology is — that it affects people. Treating it completely like it doesn’t be all the time can maybe exist disruptive to a kid audience experiencing information technology. Like, “Why am I the problem, and it’south not a problem with any of these characters?”

That overtness tucked into genre feels a little unlike anything kids animation has done before with LGBTQ+ representation, specially trans rep.

I’yard shocked a little bit. In the show I was developing earlier this, I was told pretty blankly we couldn’t have any queer representation in information technology. That kind of dehumanizing feeling was the condition quo in animation for and so long, and I however know that every bit of queer representation you come across onscreen ofttimes comes in spite of the studios or through fighting. It took me a while on this product to realize that I wasn’t fighting anybody, and if I’m not fighting everyone, how far can nosotros get with the story? So I don’t come across this testify every bit a compromised vision in any way. Budgets and COVID and all these things aside, information technology’due south the story we intended to tell. So if you but let people tell the stories they intend to tell, you lot get great stories out of it.

The prove too explores mental wellness, things like panic attacks and social anxiety. It does it through Barney but even more, Norma, which helps illustrate these things like the spectrum they are versus a atypical maybe stereotypical understanding of someone’due south condition. Why did you have that arroyo?

A lot of the process focused on Barney, but Norma is the grapheme I’m most proud of for a few reasons. 1 is that when I wrote the webcomics, I tried to make her “hashtag relatable.” I just thought this was everyone’s feel of life. So many people reached out and said, “Hey, I headcanonned her every bit autistic!” or “Great representation of anxiety.” I got so many comments similar that when nosotros came to write the testify, I idea, Norma is autistic. So we had a consultant; we had autistic people on the crew. Merely every fourth dimension I sent scripts or notes, the consultant said, “Wow, Hamish, you must have done and then much research.” I was like, “I mean, a bit, only non really.” Long story brusque, I was diagnosed with autism during the show’s production, basically, cheers to Norma, because I was simply writing my experiences.

Another reason I’yard so proud is that I had constantly pitched shows of characters like her as the lead, and I always got the annotation nearly how female characters need to be more fun and less anxious. “Why is she so abrasive? Why is she then
this
and
that?” It always bothered me because I kept seeing these characters come out whose only flaw is that they’re a bit clumsy, but they’re
super fun, awesome, great, not bad, peachy. I get it, but my experience of childhood and when I remember of what information technology was like to be a kid, I just think of sorry, solitary and awkward — and I think you can make a fun show out of that. So I’m proud of Norma and the story she goes on. And I think someone could lookout man our show and say it does feel like a “very special episode” a lot, but information technology’s just how I see the earth. I think genre allows you to requite these lessons in a way that doesn’t necessarily experience like you lot’re being preached to.

Barney and Norma brand time for crushes between those demons and anxieties. It’s interesting, though, because, without any explicit identification of their sexuality, they are perchance representing different journeys as LGBTQ+ teens. Practise you lot have plans to country their specific sexualities in the bear witness or want to explore their diverging romantic journeys further?

I will say, not yet. But nosotros are hoping to explore that much more in future episodes, god willing. And nosotros didn’t want them to have completely parallel romantic storylines. I think that would become quite wearisome. From Norma’due south perspective, compared to Barney’s, sometimes y’all do have friends who all that stuff seems like shooting fish in a barrel for and happens so fast to, and you’re still waiting. But and then, from Barney’s point of view, we see the stress he goes through over just asking him out. Then we tried to treat information technology like you would any relationship. That said, queer relationships are dissimilar, and I think it’s good to explore that. We may have done it the “just like everyone else” fashion in media, and it’due south sometimes fun to explore how they’re unlike. One of the things that we’re hoping to explore in hereafter seasons is the thought of, I suppose, exclusivity or the idea of other things that I guess I don’t see a lot in straight romances in media.

But I do call back of flavor one as Barney’due south story, where Norma’s kind of sneaks upwards behind you and then weirdly too becomes Courtney’s at the end. I think for a possible season two, the focus would shift a caste towards Norma and balance that out. We would get to know a trivial bit more nigh her struggles. Another tiny footling element of this is that it’due south hard to want to tell truthful, romantic storylines while the deject of shipping follows you. Sometimes it’s hard to write what y’all desire to write from your middle while too knowing it’s a different world in fandom sometimes. In some means, it’s the element of the evidence I’grand about scared nearly. But yous have to ignore information technology a niggling fleck when writing and only write what yous think is correct.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Expressionless Terminate: Paranormal Park
is at present streaming on Netflix.