'My Dad the Bounty Hunter': No 'talking down' to kids in animated Netflix show

Everett Downing Jr. and Patrick Harpin, creators of Netflix's My Dad the Bounty Hunter starring Laz Alonso, Yvonne Orji, Priah Ferguson and Jecobi Swain, prove that animation and child-forward storytelling doesn't mean "talking down" to kids.

“The audience, they're savvy,” Downing told Yahoo Canada. “We want to present something really fun but contextual and challenging with the characters, [and] some of the themes that the characters are dealing with.”

“A lot of times, I was actually kind of resisting kids animation, pitching kids animation stuff, … and Ed was actually talking me into it like, ‘no we can do it,’” Harpin added. “But for me, I was like, I'm not doing it if we're talking down to kids, because that's usually what they make you do.”

“I remember, as a kid, I literally said to myself, ‘I never want to do that,’ when I would watch those shows. … I remember that feeling of, they think we're dumb and we're not dumb, and so this show, very intentionally, is not talking down to them.”

What is 'My Dad the Bounty Hunter' about?

My Dad the Bounty Hunter is set in a way to excite kids but as adults (even if you don't have kids), there's still a lot to enjoy.

The series introduces us to the brother-sister duo Lisa (Priah Ferguson) and Sean (Jecobi Swain). Their parents Terry (Laz Alonso) and Tess (Yvonne Orji) are separated, so their kids spend their time between both homes. At the start of the show, Tess is driving her kids to Terry's house just before Sean's birthday.

For Downing, Sean in My Dad the Bounty Hunter has a personal connection. At the beginning of the series, we find out that Sean as a tic, which Downing's daughter has as well. It was actually a component of the character that the co-creator had to "fight" to include.

"Sean has this thing he has to deal with, but it doesn't diminish his character at all," Downing said. "He still can accomplish so much.”

Sean is excited about his dad's promise to go to Splashtown amusement park for his birthday, but Lisa is a bit more critical. Not only is she very aware of the parental tensions in her family, but her dad has a pattern of not always showing up for their expected time together, as he tries to balance his work with his personal life.

This time around, it looks like that pattern will repeat itself when Terry tells his kids that he has to unexpectedly to go work. Lisa can't stand seeing her brother disappointed, so she devises a plan to sneak into the trunk of their dad's car, so they can be with him at work.

"Lisa is a hustler," Ferguson said. "She's super duper smart, she's super sweet, she's a great big sister."

"I'm a big sister, I enjoy playing a big sister for once."

But Terry is keeping a secret from his kids. They think he's a local truck driver but he's actually a bounty hunter in space. Having followed their dad to work, Lisa and Sean end up on an intergalactic adventure with aliens, robots and other creatures they've never seen.

"Space is already super interesting, super wild," Swain said. "When you take space and mix it with intergalactic bounty hunters, different settings, different space monsters, it really hooks you in."

My Dad the Bounty Hunter has familiar beats but the writing is clever, the comedic banter between this family is infectious, and elevated by the fact that Community stars Yvette Nicole Brown and Jim Rash, and 21 Jump Street's Rob Riggle, all voice supporting characters.

“It's a show that is about kids, but not just for them,” Harpin said.

“Same way as Jurassic Park. I loved that movie as a kid, the themes of that movie, of these capitalists playing god, you wouldn't think that's going to connect kids. But that was my favourite movie. I still love it because I had an entry point through the kid characters.”

Downing and Harpin also made the visuals work extremely well with the story. When moments in the narrative look back in time, the visuals switch to 2D, giving it that nostalgic feel, executed with extensive detail.

“We've had a hankering to do 2D animation, that's been my dream forever,” Harpin said. “I really feel like 2D is still kind of slept on for storytelling, and so it kind of satisfied every need.”

“It also came from, that would separate it. So if you dropped into that, you would know it's a memory, something's different, so it would work as a narrative device.”

Chipping away at stereotypes of Black fathers

Laz Alonso stressed that one aspect of this series that made him want to join the project is the way Terry is crafted as a father.

"Something that I've been very committed to ... is to play a good, strong Black father," he said. "This show [has] given me the opportunity to help kind of chip away at some stereotypes that Black fathers are not present in the home."

"So stories like this where we can show, ... why isn't he present? What is he doing and how do we resolve that issue? What can he learn from being present more? And what can his kids learn as to why he's not there? Little things like that are great conversations that extend into the home ... when people watch the show."

Yvonne Orji highlighted that the family aspect of the show is also something she connected to, both the on-screen story and how families can watch this series together.

"I love being able to have entertainment that the whole family can watch," she said. "We need connection, especially after two and a half years of disconnect."

"So I thought this was a project that really brings multi-generational families together. ... Also, a Black family is at the centre of this sci-fi world. Sign me up."

Alonso echoed his co-star's statements, highlighting that it also exemplifies that kids are more aware of their family situations than some parents may think.

"It reminds parents and adults that our kids see, hear, learn and interpret a lot more than sometimes we give them credit for, and they're a lot more aware of things than we may think that they are," he said.

"They deserve a lot more truth than sometimes we think they can compartmentalize at a certain time. So here it shows how aware they are of what they want, and what they really know their parents are doing."