Princesses, Superheroes and Dinosaurs: Behind the Scenes with Moon Girl’s Pilar Flynn

Clank. Whoosh. ZAP! And then: cheers.

Those are the sounds of 13-year-old genius Lunella, alter ego Moon Girl, taking out blackout-causing electrical villain Aftershock in the pilot episode of Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. The secret to Moon Girl’s success? A mastery of science—and, oh yeah, a skyscraper-sized partner-in-fighting-crime, Devil Dinosaur.

The Disney Channel animated series is one of the latest entries to the Disney/Marvel oeuvre. Season one premiered in February and is now streaming on Disney+. The show has all the elements of classic superhero cartoons and then some: Secret lair? Check. Enigmatic supervillains? Check. Comic relief sidekick? Check. Ten-ton hot dog-loving dinosaur? Uh, check. 

It’s also the most recent project from Pilar Flynn (’97), a longtime producer in the animation world. Flynn’s previous credits include Flushed Away, Sausage Party and the Disney Junior  series Elena of Avalor, which earned her two Emmy noms. 

That was the show that really changed things for her. When it debuted, Elena made history as Disney’s first princess inspired by Latin culture and folklore. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I absolutely have to be a part of that,’” says Flynn, a native South American who grew up between Chile, Ecuador and Europe. “Elena was so important to me because it was so inspiring to me and my family, as well as to my culture. From then on, I knew I couldn’t just do animation; I had to do animation that made a difference.”

Moon Girl is all that and more, she says. 

The show is based on the Marvel Comics books created by Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder and Natacha Bustos. It follows Lunella Lafayette, a Black teenager living in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Her family owns a roller rink, and Lunella spends her days skating around the neighborhood. As for the superhero part: Lunella also happens to be a STEM supergenius. One day, she accidentally opens an interdimensional portal that transports Devil Dinosaur, a giant red T-rex, into the LES. She adopts the name Moon Girl (after her favorite scientist, of course) and she and Devil Dinosaur team up to fight crime—her brains with his brawn—under the direction of PR expert Casey Goldberg-Calderon, her new best friend and manager. 

The series is funny and joyful. It speaks to today’s chronically online kids and tweens—“Selena Gomez just followed me; do whatever this magical creature says, Lunella!” aspiring influencer Casey instructs—while continuing Marvel’s brand of tongue-in-cheek humor. (“Do they even go below 14th Street?” Lunella’s grandma, Mimi, pointedly asks of the Avengers.) The cast is capital-S stacked: Jennifer Hudson, Alison Brie, Craig Robinson, Method Man and fellow BU alums Andy Cohen (’90) and Alfre Woodard (CFA’74, HON’04) all voice characters. Plus, Laurence Fishburne serves as an executive producer on top of lending his voice talents.  

The core of the show is “two little girls of color embracing themselves completely and using their intelligence to support one another in order to save the world,” Flynn says. “Lunella decides to become her own kind of superhero and fight for the Lower East Side using her incredible brains. And Casey is this total lady-boss Latina social media maven who helps Lunella step up her abilities. That was so empowering for me to see on screen…. It’s a beautiful, aspirational thing for all little girls to experience as possible.”

The core of the show is ‘two little girls of color embracing themselves completely and using their intelligence to support one another in order to save the world. 

Pilar Flynn

Moon Girl is squarely part of the new wave of representation in animation. While big-budget studios like Disney and Sony are indeed producing a more inclusive range of storylines, they’re also embracing “casual diversity,” when content features diverse characters but is not explicitly about diversity. Think: the introduction of Miles Morales as a Spider-Man in Into the Spider-Verse and the Afro-Latinx representation of Encanto, but also a character with an insulin pump in Turning Red and a queer teenage relationship in Strange World.

Much of the representation seen on-screen comes from representation behind the scenes, Flynn says. For Moon Girl, it was important to the producers to assemble a crew that reflected the diversity of the Lower East Side. That meant going out of their way to hire and mentor less-experienced creators. Now, in season two, former apprentice storyboard artists and writers have “full seats at the table” as experienced makers. 

The show is just as much about its real-life superheroes. “I’m just so proud of this crew and all that we’ve accomplished,” Flynn says. “We have a lot of team members who maybe wouldn’t have otherwise gotten this opportunity who are now set to be leaders in their fields in a couple of years.”

From BUTV to DreamWorks

Flynn wears multiple hats on set. As a creative producer on season one, she oversaw the budget, the production schedule and personnel, plus casting and music. As co-executive producer and co-showrunner for season two, she also works closely with the artistic leads—the heads of story, the production designer, the art directors and so on—to ensure the show’s vision flows smoothly through the seasons. 

Many of her skills can be credited to COM, she says. At BU, Flynn was heavily involved in BUTV10 shows. She met her husband David Kalbeitzer (’97), now vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering’s digital and media production studio, working on the soap opera Bay State. Later, she and Kalbeitzer co-created the sci-fi show Shadows, or the Secret Hawthorne Association for Devoted Occult-Watching Students. Now on season 29, it’s one of the longest-running shows in BUTV10 history. 

BU is where Flynn really fell in love with film and TV. “[David and our friends and I] were the film nerds out making movies and shooting Shadows instead of partying,” she recalls, laughing. In the pre-streaming days, their shows would air on TVs at the GSU and around BU. That was their first taste of “‘Oh my God, this is what it’s like to create a show,’” Flynn says.   

She ended up working in live action after graduation to secure a work visa. But the animation field had been calling her name ever since a producer from Aardman Animations, the British studio responsible for Wallace and Gromit, visited one of her classes at COM. Cue the BU network: Two friends, Kim Mackey (’93) and Kristen Swift (’95), had recently been hired at the brand-new DreamWorks Animation studio. They knew Flynn was interested in switching to animation, and helped her get a gig as a production assistant on the 2000 animated feature The Road to El Dorado.    

Flynn has been in the field ever since. “There’s so much I love about animation and feel inspired by every day,” she says. “There’s less of a hierarchy [than in other media production], so you really all are in it together. I also love that there’s just no limit to what stories you can tell. You can draw anything your mind can possibly imagine.”

Telling Profound Stories

To borrow a beloved quote from a different Marvel franchise: With great power comes great responsibility.  

The impact animation has on kids is formidable. For many, Saturday morning or after-school cartoons provide lessons about respect and accountability. What kids see—or don’t see—on TV has the potential to shape their world views and their impressions of themselves and others.  

That’s never far from Flynn’s mind. 

She herself learned so much from her favorite cartoons growing up. “I had so many aspirational characters to look up to and they taught me how to believe in myself and what I could accomplish,” she says. “If kids see it in animated form, they’ll believe it. It’s a huge responsibility.” 

I think we really underestimate kids—especially diverse kids…. Now is the time to plant that seed of storytelling. The world wants to hear what they have to say.

Pilar Flynn

She also knows the power of letting diverse creators tell their own stories. Flynn is on the board of directors for the Latino Film Institute, an organization that provides Latinx individuals with pipelines into the entertainment industry. She works on two of their initiatives, the Youth Cinema Project and LatinX in Animation, to introduce kids to the animation industry. The quality of work that comes out of the programs is mindblowing, she says. 

“I think we really underestimate kids—especially diverse kids,” Flynn says. “Their stories are so profound, and the dynamics of the world are important to them, too. Now is the time to plant that seed of storytelling. The world wants to hear what they have to say.”

She also recently participated in a COM alumni panel on inclusive storytelling through animation. According to a 2019 study from the University of Southern California, women of color make up only five percent of producers in the animation industry, and only two percent of directors. The numbers are similar for roles like lead storyboard artist and editing head. 

During the panel, Flynn spoke about the difference between equality and equity. Equality, she said, is giving everyone in the room the same opportunity. Equity is acknowledging that there are scores of people who don’t even have access to the building, and therefore don’t know that the room exists. 

She’s confident that her life’s work will include busting that building open for kids and creators alike. 

Back to the (TV) super-verse: A few episodes into Moon Girl, Lunella tries to create a super-strength hair straightening serum before picture day, after a classmate criticizes her Afro puffs. Instead, she burns all her hair off and accidentally creates Mane, a sentient pile of hair out for revenge. 

The episode is both cheeky and poignant. While Mane is full of one-liners, she also just wants Lunella to love her Black hair. And ultimately, that’s what Lunella does. She spritzes Mane with a super-neutralizer spray, sending her hair back onto her head in time to crush school pictures.  

The lessons from this episode are loud and clear. First: Never forget the neutralizer. But more importantly, as Grandma Mimi tells Lunella: “Always be proud of who you are, little girl, no matter what the world tells you.”