June 2nd, 2022 
Jackson Murphy 
The “Face” of Nickelodeon from 1994 to 2004 is back! Face’s Music Party, premiering this Monday June 6th at 11am, stars a new version of the iconic mascot in a fun series for kids that celebrates dancing and cool tunes. Executive Producer David Kleiler and the new voice of Face, Cedric Williams, discuss the joys of the show. (These interviews are combined into this Animation Scoop piece and were edited for length and clarity.)
I begin by showing David and Cedric a yellow Subway Nick Jr. promotional Face bag from 1999.
David Kleiler: That’s amazing. That’s amazing to see that. There’s so much to talk about when you talk about Face. And I am so much older than anybody that grew up with Face. But in developing the show, I just recognized immediately how beloved Face is, and was, and how this was a great way in to doing a music show for Nickelodeon for this audience.
Jackson Murphy: When did it hit you that now was the right time?
DK: Nickelodeon wanted to do a music show for preschoolers, and it makes a lot of sense. If you think about it… “Baby Shark”… there’s some world in which, especially when you’re looking at online video, there are nursery school hits dropping. Nickelodeon understandably, wanted to have a platform to showcase this. The original idea, and it wasn’t that long ago — conversations that started a year ago — were, “We wanna figure out how we wanna do Total Request Live, that MTV show, for preschoolers. What does that look like?” I was brought in, which was super nice, because I’m more of a digital content guy. I’m new to the company. I had done some projects and they were like, “Maybe David could figure this out.”
We came-up with a cool idea… it was different than what we’re doing now. It had all these characters. We first pitched it to Ramsey Naito. She was super receptive, but to me this was a very clear moment and… you have to be able to read the room a little bit. Face was gonna be a segment in this other idea we had, and I remember her response was, “God I love Face. I just love that you integrated Face.” And I did a 180. I just got the sense from her that I was like, “No no no. Oh my God. What are we doing here? This has got to be about Face.” I had other producers involved and I was like, “You know what? We’re gonna scrap this whole idea.”
It’s cool, no matter what audience you’re addressing, to make something that has some legacy and authenticity to it — and has some history and background. Let’s be obvious: absolutely none of our actual audience for this show is gonna remember Face. It’s physically impossible. But there’s something about it grounded in this history. I refer to Face as the O.G. emoji.
JM: (laughs)
DK: There does seem to be in the post-anime world and in toys and the way faces are used — have come a long way since Face. So why don’t we honor Face as having this place in culture and remembering how, even with small screens now, how impactful it can be to have just a single face address a young audience.
Cedric Williams and Jackson Murphy
JM: And in the last few years, especially in this COVID period, my age and above (mid-20s to mid-40s) loves nostalgia and that factor. And you trusted your instincts. How did you trust your instincts when it came to casting Cedric as Face?
DK: That was a pretty instinctive call. Cedric checks a number of boxes. Cedric bleeds orange. Completely. He has all the Funko SpongeBob collectibles that probably could put a down payment on a house.
JM: (laughs)
DK: He loves it. He was a kid who grew up with this stuff. But really, it was the fact that Cedric also was genuinely a Face kid. Completely. I also thought that if you’re bringing back Face you have to have this energy and exuberance. We’re very big on trying to meet kids where they are. Cedric’s experience in anime… he has a modern voice for this and it made sense. I also wanted to play Face as being the cool aunt or uncle, or the cool older sibling. Cedric really understood that. It’s that balance of being able to be zany, and Cedric can do the vocal gymnastics, but Cedric can also connect authentically. How do you do those two things at once? How do you be Mister Rogers on the one hand but also be zany, Robin Williams on the other? Where do we find that balance?
JM: That’s a high complement.
DK: (laughs) Those are HUGE aspirations. But I also deeply believe… Cedric is one to watch in this business. His dedication to his craft and his commitment… he’s been a joy to work with.
Cedric Williams: That’s an incredible complement right there. Robin Williams, rest in peace, was so animated and so magical. He could be funny. He could be serious. And to get that complement: I don’t know what to say, but thank you for that complement. That’s great to hear and boosted up my confidence. Definitely.
JM: You do such a great job with this. You bring so much energy to Face, and I think part of it is because you love Nickelodeon so much. You have loved this network since you were really young.
CW: Yes, I love Nickelodeon so much. Some of my favorite cartoons have come from this network. I watched it all. SpongeBob was my favorite.
JM: Mine too.
CW: Yes!
JM: You know what I used to do when I was young with my cousins? We would have ballots of the Kids Choice Awards every year and we would try to predict the winners, and that was always so much fun.
CW: (laughs) That’s awesome. I would love to go to the Kids Choice Awards. I’ve never actually been.
JM: Whoa. They gotta bring you to the Kids Choice Awards. Now that Face is returning to the network — this big symbol. What does it mean to you that you are the new generation for this symbol — for this representation of what Nickelodeon is and can be for kids — and this generation of kids?
CW: It’s an absolute honor to be a character that means so much to people. And now this new generation gets to experience what I experienced and what a lot of people experienced in the ’90s. Face is not only a friend to everybody, he also teaches you things. And on this show, Face will teach you about different types of music and can get you up and moving and involved. It’s an honor to voice this iconic character. I hope that my version of Face will have an impact like Face 1.0. This is Face 2.0 and I’m looking forward to seeing people’s reactions when they watch the new show.
JM: I think he and you will have an impact on so many. What is your favorite color, and is it a color that we’re gonna see as a background behind Face often on the show?
CW: My favorite color is yellow. I love yellow, black and blue. And yes, Face does turn yellow and blue — a lot. That’s what I love about Face: when Face becomes these different colors… when you see colors there’s an emotion attached, to a mood. When Face turns yellow, Face is bright, energetic and happy like the sunshine.
JM: The first episode is about robots and imagination. I’m amazed at the different animation styles you incorporate in this. You have hand-drawn, stop-motion — and puppetry and mixed media. I love the “Purple People Eater” sequence. David, what amazes you about the different kinds of animation and mixed media that you bring into this show?
DK: Thank you for that. We wanted to have visual variety — to harken back to a more old school approach to kids television. Things felt different. We wanted to have everything feel authentically creative. To do that, you have to have a variety of animation. When we started producing this show… and I gotta be very careful saying this because I don’t want to denigrate the fine people that make music content in the world… but one of the first things I said was, “We’re not ripping YouTube videos made by kid content creators and putting this in this show — even if they’re playing classic songs that we can license.”
DK: There was a deep desire to re-record nursery school songs with various artists we work with at Nick. But if you’re gonna visually match that, let’s go out to indie animators all around the world. We commissioned these videos. There was guidance… and suggestions about what will connect more with our audience. But honestly we gave a lot of creative license to some of these young animators, and it’s really exciting. In our first season, we’ve created the framework to continue to do that.
I think “Purple People Eater” is a beautiful clip, but that’s a pure licensed clip. That’s one example where that’s an online video that some of our audience maybe has or hasn’t seen. So we’re very carefully picking stuff that lives in that world that feels artful and creative and not necessarily cookie cutter. And then we’re making our own indie animators commision to do stuff. I grew up with Sesame Street and etc., etc. To this day I remember feeling visual variety as being kind of inspiring. Things can look different and there are different kinds of music and art. Nick Jr. is not Sesame Street. We’re in the game of doing something super fun AND… it was also important to us because we understand that kids discover and engage with music and content in a different way. We want this to be the place that the next great animator produces a segment on. We really want to celebrate animation.
And to Face himself having different animation styles. This show has to be nimble. We’re hoping we get to this place where we’re producing it really quickly and current music is coming on it. But even within that, we’re stretching the limits of what you would do in a more simple… Face is in After Effects… but we’re still trying to push the boundary through illustration and have as much fun as we can.
JM: My bag has a yellow background. Is there really a method behind which color backgrounds for which specific scenes?
DK: (laughs) Is there a method? Wow! That’s such a good question because I feel like in the old Face there was, but we’re trying to have Face tell these little stories and then make something that’s congruent with whatever video or clip we’re licensing that’s coming next. So, that’s not an easy answer. There’s no simple, “Face is Happy, so he’s yellow.” It’s not like that. It’s just what feels visually right in the moment. We do a lot with the backgrounds. We try to keep it visually interesting every beat. That background changes a lot. It’s not as simple and intentional as the old version. There’s a lot going on with story. There’s a lot that Face illustrates. There’s a lot we want to have flow nicely into the next segment.
JM: Cedric, when you recorded your dialogue for this, how much of your facial expressions match what we see with Face on the show?
CW: It actually helps me get into the voice better. A lot of the direction sometimes is: if I do a take they’re like, “That was good, but can you add a smile to it?” Just adding a smile to it does something. You hear it. Face is really upbeat and generally happy and helpful and insightful and fun. Right now I’m talking to you smiling and you can probably hear my excitement. That’s what I do for Face all the time when I’m doing the voice. And I’m really animated in general, so I put my whole body into it. I use my hands a lot and my body, like if Face is doing a different voice I put my chest out like this! It’s just insane. It’s such a fun character to bring to life.
JM: I loved hearing the “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” song. That brought me right back to when I was a kid. Did hearing some of these songs or knowing that some of these songs are on this show bring you back to songs that got stuck in your head when you were a child?
CW: Yes! There’s “Row Row Row Your Boat”, “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”, “London Bridge”, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. And it’s remixed! So it makes it even more enjoyable. It gets you up and dancing [and] maybe humming the song later on. It’s fun stuff. I love it so much.
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