Some of the most delightful stories on television these days come in the format of children’s animation and if the likes of Adventure Time and Steven Universe have proven anything, it’s that these stories can appeal to everyone, regardless of age. The same can be said for Apple TV+’s Wolfboy and the Everything Factory.
Created by Toff Mazery and Edward Jesse, and overseen by executive producer Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Wolfboy and the Everything Factory is a charming story of creativity and imagination. It follows Wolfboy, a young human boy who travels to the secret magical realm of the Sprytes and discovers the Everything Factory, aka the place where everything on Earth is created.
Wolfboy and the Everything Factory sports an incredibly talented young voice cast including Kassian Akhtar (Wolfboy), Archie Yates (Sprout) and Lilly Williams (Xandra). Gordon-Levitt also pulls double duty as a producer and the voice of Professor Luxcraft.
Gizmodo Australia recently spoke with Gordon-Levitt about the second season of the Apple TV+ series and how it epitomises the fantasy genre.
“What I love that they did in season 2 is they took a really unexpected turn with the story,” Gordon-Levitt said during our Zoom interview. “In many stories of the fantasy genre you have the big baddie and their bad army and the heroes have to just beat the baddies.”
“But what I love that Toff and Edward did with this is that rather than just beat those baddies you discover the Disarrays are in many ways similar to the Sprytes in ways that the Sprytes aren’t brought up to understand. In fact, destruction is a necessary component of creativity and there is no creativity without destruction. And that is a very different way for the story to go,” he said.
“I think there’s a lot to say there about how sometimes we’re raised to think, ‘Oh, those people over there, they’re different from us and they’re bad’, but in fact, if you ever go there and get to know them, maybe you’re less different than you think. So I think that’s a really positive message to instil in a show like this.”
Season 2 introduces both audiences and Wolfboy to the realm of the Disarrays, which is overseen by Nyx (voiced by Ted Lasso’s Juno Temple).
This opened the door for a range of characters, including a new Disarray named Seth (Abigail Estrella), who helps to turn the “good and evil fantasy structure on its ear” according to Gordon-Levitt.
“We spent the whole first season thinking that the Disarrays were the villains and the antagonists and now there’s a main character, Seth, who is a Disarray, who is friends with Wolfboy and Xandra and Sprout,” he said.
“Now we get to really examine some of those prejudices. The Sprytes are brought up to mistrust a Disarrary but once they get to know one, so many of those prejudices are undermined, and to me, those are incredibly valuable lessons.”
Alongside producing Wolfboy and the Everything Factory, Gordon-Levitt said voicing Professor Luxcraft was a joy as an actor:
“It’s not the kind of character I would necessarily get to play on camera, you know, sort of an elder rotund wizard with a violet beard down to his belly. But getting to do that is a blast,” Gordon-Levitt said.
“When you act with your voice there’s something really liberating about it because you’re not limited by your appearance. It’s a bit more like when you play pretend as a kid. When you’re acting on camera, part of it is tied to how you look, but when you’re a kid playing pretend you don’t care about how you look. So getting to just act with your voice and be this magical character reminded me more of that energy of playing with my imagination.”
Animated series have become a burgeoning home for diverse and authentically creative stories in recent years, particularly when it comes to family series.
Wolfboy’s exploration of the complicated dichotomy between the creativity of the Sprytes and the destruction of the Disarrays helps the show embody important and relevant messages.
“We don’t necessarily have to speak about the real world’s current events because the most important thing is the values that underlie those current events. Especially when speaking to a younger audience getting those values to be positive ones is some of the most impact that art can have,” he said.
The new season of Wolfboy and the Everything Factory is streaming now on Apple TV+.