With a Children’s and Family Emmy Award and Season 4 renewal in hand, the hit preschool animation series that follows four fierce and furry superhero kitties on a mission to make their hometown a more ‘pawesome’ place launches its new season today, October 1, on Disney+.
This was a good year to be a SuperKitty. Disney Branded Television’s SuperKitties series was not only renewed for Season 3 and Season 4, but it also landed its first Children’s and Family Emmy Award. The show, also a Kidscreen Award-winner for Preschool Programming’s Best New Series, recently released its third season on Disney Channel and Disney Junior and will be available on Disney+ today, October 1.
Created by Emmy Award-winner Paula Rosenthal (Peter Rabbit) and produced by Sony Pictures Television – Kids, SuperKitties is set in the city of Kittydale and follows four fierce and furry superhero kittens who are on a mission to make their town of Kittydale a more caring and “pawesome” place.
Each SuperKitties episode features two 11-minute stories as the kittens receive “SuperKitty Calls” from one of their animal friends with a problem that only the SuperKitties can help with, usually caused by one of the comedic villains in the series: Cat Burglar, Mr. Puppypaws, Lab Rat, or Zsa-Zsa. With plenty of super skills and gadgets at their disposal, the shiny-spandex-clad SuperKitties set off to thwart the villains’ plans and impart important messages of kindness and empathy along the way.
In Season 3, the SuperKitties’ new wildcat friend, Willa, is ready to help them with their missions as the heroes travel to Kittydale Wild Jungle. But new brother-sister hamster villains, Pamster and Champster, known as “The Glamsters,” have chaotic plans of their own.
Check out the trailer:
Emmy Award-winning producer and writer Sarah Mullervy (Peter Rabbit) serves as executive producer, alongside Kirk Van Wormer (Transformers: Prime) and Audu Paden (Monster High), who also serve as executive producers. Utkarsh Ambudkar (Ghosts) and Ginnifer Goodwin (Zootopia 2) have joined the Season 3 cast, voicing villains Champster and Pamster.
AWN chatted with Mullervy about Season 3’s biggest production challenges, why they chose glamorous hamsters as jungle villains, and what’s in store for Season 4.
Victoria Davis: This new season finds the SuperKitties traveling into the Kittydale Wild Jungle on adventures with their wildcat friend Willa and new jungle critters. How did you and the team enjoy expanding the world of the SuperKitties outside their city and into these vibrant jungle sets?
Sarah Mullervy: It was tremendously fun. Kittydale, the SuperKitties’ home, is a gorgeous city full of skyscrapers, museums, crowded streets, etc., whereas the Kittydale Wild Jungle is dense with lush greenery, impressive waterfalls, and mysterious crystal caves waiting to be explored. Being able to expand not only the world, but the types of SuperKitties stories we tell, has been great. Plus, we loved spending more time with our new friend Willa and visiting her home.
VD: What was the biggest challenge when it came to worldbuilding and set design for the new season?
SM: The biggest challenge may have been creating the visual look of the Kittydale Wild Jungle itself. In Season 1 and Season 2, our team invented a visual style for Kittydale that was full of colorful and playful cat-centric details like the kitty-eared streetlights and buildings, the Purr N Play with its giant cat signage, and more. We needed the Jungle to feel like a continuation of that kitty-city style without losing its jungle vibes.
Luckily, my fellow EPs, Kirk Van Wormer and Audu Paden, led our team in creating a jungle world that feels like SuperKitties, and yet is completely its own thing. They even found a way to add a few cat-centric details, my favorite being Kitty Cat Mountain with its cat-like silhouette. Another fun challenge was devising new power-up and hero powers for our SuperKitties to use in this new environment. Their new Su-purr Wild suits are pawesome.
VD: You’re introducing villains Champster and Pamster Glamster this season, a glamorous brother and sister hamster duo. Why hamsters for the villains this season? And why glamorous hamsters? I had to ask. It’s an interesting choice for a jungle adventure.
SM: We wanted our new villains to span both the Jungle and Kittydale without stepping on any of our established villains. Pamster and Champster, aka The Glamsters, fulfilled both of those desires. Through them, we were able to craft stories around what it means to be a sibling, as well as their relationship with their child-owner, Evie. None of our other villains have a child companion and exploring that has led to lots of relatable preschool stories and humor.
Like the rest of our villains, the Glamsters are ridiculously silly and over the top in their schemes, yet undeniably relatable in their desires. We were so fortunate to have Utkarsh Ambudkar and Ginnifer Goodwin voice these characters. They brought so much comedy, quirkiness, and heart to their roles.
To your question, why glam? I say, why not? But seriously, the Glamsters love glam – glitter, stickers, and rainbows – because Evie does. And anything she loves, they love.
VD: What kind of chaos can we expect from these Glamsters this season?
SM: From nearly wrecking a major holiday while wearing not-very-sneaky disguises to challenging a fellow villain to a “Glam Off” their chaos is always big and super silly.
VD: Were there any design challenges with the new characters?
SM: It’s always a challenge finding that balance between characters that fit into both the everyday kid friendly real world of Kittydale and the secret Superhero world of the SuperKitties. In the end, we want to feel like our characters could be right around any kids’ corner, and that their own kitties might be having adventures with them while humans are not watching.
When designing the Glamsters, we made sure their wardrobe felt like something a child could have made for them. They are pure glitter, rainbow, and joy squeezed into tiny spandex-clad furry bodies.
VD: This show has always been founded on kindness and empathy. What kinds of situations and interactions are you excited for young viewers to see and learn from this season?
SM: This season continues our core message that with kindness the world can be a truly pawesome place. No matter how big and over-the-top our villains’ schemes are this season – from the Glamsters setting traps all over the jungle for catching a unicorn, to Zsa Zsa causing chaos by impersonating the tooth fairy – our superheroes never jump to conclusions and always strive to find the deeper reason why our baddies are behaving badly. And we think those moments of empathy, paired with big action and great comedy, are what set our show apart.
VD: My daughter and I were at Target the other day shopping for her Halloween costume, and I saw a whole bunch of SuperKitties costumes on the racks. What’s it been like seeing this show grow in popularity over the last two seasons?
SM: It’s amazing and it inspires us to keep making great material for our fans.
VD: Season 4 has been confirmed. Looking toward the future, what are your hopes for the show? What other themes, environments, or new characters can we expect in the next season?
SM: Season 4 will include some fun new villains, comically epic battles, and adorable new animal friends. We’ve had lots of fun playing in different episodic formats and we’re interested in continuing to explore that. For example, the SuperKitties Supurr Adventure 2-minute interstitials gave us a way to tell smaller, wackier stories that couldn’t have sustained an 11-minute episode.
And we love adding new characters to our world. The Glamsters and the SuperKitties’ friend Willa unlocked so many new stories for us. Our goal is to expand the SuperKitties world in ways that feel organic and true to its characters while always keeping Ginny, Sparks, Buddy, and Bitsy at its center.
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
