Bobby and Romy are tween friends who love looking for spooky creatures. What happens when they finally find them? It all unravels on the new Disney animated series The Doomies, from co-creators Andrés Fernandez and Henry Gifford, premiering this Friday June 26th on Disney+. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: Congrats to both of you — and co-creator Pozla (who couldn’t be with us today). Andrés, have you always been fascinated with paranormal activity?

Andrés Fernandez: Yeah, I think so. I grew up in the ’90s. When I was a kid I was watching all the spooky horror movies, but with comedy too, like Ghostbusters and Gremlins. Since the beginning, I love to get a little bit scared.

JM: Henry, how did it feel making this show contemporary and having it be about tweens who are really interested in this?

Henry Gifford: It’s such a scary time when you’re growing up when you’re a tween. You’re kind of in limbo — you’re not a kid but you’re not an adult. And you’re expected to have all the answers. And your body’s changing too. It’s scary, so that seemed perfect to allow these tweens to fight literal monsters but also monsters within themselves. So that made complete sense for horror / supernatural. And Goosebumps is all about children and often the parents aren’t really there. We thought this was perfect for that. And contemporary — kids are obviously nowadays with their phones. Wouldn’t it be fun if they had a video channel? That would be a good reason for them to go out hunting for monsters for their audience (though nobody watches their videos).

JM:Andrés, it’s so ambitious that you directed all 22 of these episodes. Was that daunting? You don’t see, as often as you used to, 22 episodes for an animated show right out of the gate like this.

AF: It was a lot of work. It wasn’t easy but it was also very stimulating. I worked with a really incredible team. I could really count on them. I feel very lucky to have been directing the 22 episodes. It was a very good experience.

JM: Nice. And Henry, as head writer, how did you want to show the friendship between Bobby and Romy — the arc of that, and initially a very good introductory episode to show their dynamic.

HG: Great. We like the idea of them being such good friends forever. They’ve been friends since Kindergarten and they’ve got this very special relationship where Romy is always dragging Bobby into trouble, and this time she drags him into more trouble than they can both handle, and that kicks off the story. That kind of forces them to solidify their friendship but also bring some questions up to the forefront. And we feel they managed it in a really satisfying way. I hope the audience will relate to it and like them enough to want to be their friends too. That’s always a dream.

JM:Andrés, how did you want to unravel who Bobby and Romy encounter and when they encounter them? What kinds of interesting creatures are we gonna see on “The Doomies”?

AF: Well I don’t want to reveal a lot but in each episode they’re gonna see some new creatures, new monsters… like vampires, fog monsters… there are 22 monsters, at least. (laughs)

JM: Cool. Was it fun designing and coming up with them?

AF: Yeah. It was very fun to design these but we wanted to have something familiar and also very unique for this show. It was very interesting to make the vampires… all the creatures. Always a very good challenge.

JM: And I’m sure, Henry, there was maybe a challenge too in presenting the coastal town and the diner. I love that environment.

HG: Being able to base such a show in France was a blessing. We grew up and spent a lot of time in France, particularly the north of France. We know that area well. To be able to poke fun at it, in a loving way, and to bring it to life was great. I think those coastal towns… being a kid there is quite torturous. There’s a lot of boredom that comes about, which really encourages… we make boredom a character, which pushes them to do silly, adventurous, dangerous [things]. And the diner — coastal towns always have this local watering hole with very local people in it. We thought it was such a great place to be able to have fun and have our characters interact with it.

JM: I like it a lot. So Andrés… the look of the show, in terms of daytime and nighttime and mood / atmosphere. That is so big. How important was that for you?

AF: As an overall spooky show, I wanted to have something with a lot of atmosphere. I didn’t want to have something very kid friendly with a lot of blue skies and things like that. I wanted to have the opposite. I also wanted to make it feel real. In the winter, there aren’t many sunny days. I wanted a little bit gray with a lot of spooky atmospheres. And in the action scenes I wanted something to have a lot of color and pop. It served really well the setting and staging.

JM: And Henry — the satisfaction of knowing something and the sense of mystery in something. How did you want to incorporate that with these characters, and do you embrace that theme in making a show like this?

HG: (laughs) Yeah, making a show like this is a leap of faith more than embracing the mystery. But it was exciting trying to figure out… we weren’t always sure where we were going at first. At first it’s blue sky, where anything is possible… “What’s the most exciting and cool story we could have for these characters?” We figured out a lot of it early. I think we came up with a really fun, satisfying, spooky overall mystery and one that resonates with characters in a journey too, which is a mystery in itself. We unpacked it in a really exciting way over a season. We tease it at very specific episodes to keep you hooked, hopefully, and slowly unravel the spookiness.

JM: I’m very excited for you guys: You’re in competition at Annecy. How does it feel to screen this at this highly regarded festival?

AF: It’s an honor to be selected to this international festival. I can’t wait to be there and to see “The Doomies” on the big screen with all the fans of animation. I think it’s going to be a very cool, great moment.

HG: We’ll be in the audience. We’ll be watching everybody. It’s such a great honor. We were so excited when we found out. I think “The Doomies” truly deserves to be seen on a big screen with an audience. So we’ll let you know how it goes!