NICKELODEON MAKES ROOM FOR THE CASAGRANDES
BEGINNING MONDAY, OCT. 14, AT 1:30 P.M. (ET/PT)
New Series Follows Adventures of a Multigenerational Mexican-American Family
in Spinoff of the Emmy Award-Winning The Loud House
Eugenio Derbez, Carlos Alazraqui, Carlos PenaVega and Alexa PenaVega Bring the Family
to Life, Along with Melissa Joan Hart and Ken Jeong Lending Voices as Their Neighbors
Share it: @nickelodeon @thecasagrandes
BURBANK, Calif.–Sept. 4, 2019–A new home in the city holds big adventures, laughs and love around every corner in Nickelodeon’s new original animated series The Casagrandes, premiering Monday, Oct. 14, at 1:30 p.m. (ET/PT). A spinoff of Nick’s animated hit The Loud House, The Casagrandes tells the story of 11-year-old Ronnie Anne who moves to the city with her mom and older brother to live with their big, loving family, the Casagrandes. Following its premiere, the series moves to its regular timeslot on Saturdays at 11:30 a.m. (ET/PT) beginning Saturday, Oct. 19, on Nickelodeon.
Starring Izabella Alvarez (Westworld) as 11-year-old Ronnie Annie, Carlos PenaVega (Big Time Rush) as her brother Bobby and Sumalee Montano (Nashville) as her mom Maria, the series showcases the culture, humor, and love that’s part of growing up in a multigenerational Mexican-American family. After moving in with their grandparents in Great Lakes City, Ronnie Anne adjusts to her new life living under one roof and over the family-run mercado (local market), which is a gathering place for everyone in the neighborhood.
Alvarez, PenaVega and Montano bring these characters to life, alongside: Carlos Alazraqui (The Fairly OddParents) as Carlos, “Tio;” Roxana Ortega (The League) as Frida, “Tia;” Alexa PenaVega (Spy Kids) as Carlota; Jared Kozak (Born this Way) as CJ; Alex Cazares (The Boss Baby: Back in Business) as Carl; Ruben Garfias (East Los High) as Hector, “Abuelo;” and Sonia Manzano (Sesame Street) as Rosa, “Abuela.” Additionally, Eugenio Derbez (Dora and the Lost City of Gold) gives voice to Dr. Santiago, a physician living and working in Peru, who is Ronnie Anne and Bobby’s father.
Ronnie Anne’s new apartment building holds new friends and neighbors, including: Ken Jeong (Dr. Ken) as Stanley Chang; Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina the Teenage Witch) as Becca Chang; Leah Mei Gold (Legion) as 12-year-old Sid Chang, Ronnie Anne’s new friend; and Lexi Sexton as Adelaide Chang, Sid’s 6-year-old little sister.
In the first episode, “Going Overboard,” Ronnie Anne finds out her Tio Carlos was a famous skateboarder and she begs him to teach her some new moves. Then, in “Walk Don’t Run,” Ronnie Anne and Sid start a dog-walking business to save up for a new skateboard in a plan that quickly gets out of hand.
The Casagrandes premiere will encore at 3:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon. The Casagrande family was first introduced in the The Loud House special, “The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos,” which premiered May 2017 and ranks as the highest-rated premiere for the series in Live+7 with both K2-11 (6.6/1.8M) and K6-11 (8.1/1.3M).
The Casagrandes is produced by Nickelodeon in Burbank, Calif. The series is executive produced by Michael Rubiner (The Loud House), with Karen Malach (The Loud House) serving as producer, Alan Foreman as supervising producer and Miguel Puga as supervising director. Award-winning cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz (Coco) serves as consulting producer and cultural consultant.
About Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon, now in its 40th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books and feature films. Nickelodeon’s U.S. television network is seen in more than 90 million households and has been the number-one-rated basic cable network for 20 consecutive years. For more information or artwork, visit http://www.nickpress.com. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB).
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From TV KIDS:
TV KIDS: And you have The Casagrandes, a spin-off of The Loud House, coming up.
ROBBINS: I can’t take credit for that. It was happening before I got here. But I must say I’m super proud of the show. First of all, it’s the first animated show starring a multigenerational Mexican-American family. And it couldn’t be a better time to have that show. Besides that, it is hilarious. It’s so well written and the characters are so good. And I can’t wait to share it with the world. I think the show is terrific.
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From The San Diego Union-Tribune:
Cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz’s journey from Lemon Grove to Hollywood to improve Latino representation
Lemon Grove native Lalo Alcaraz has long been an advocate for better representation of Latinos in America. Now, it’s his day job.
A shy, but artistically-inclined kid from Lemon Grove has become a bold artist whose influence can be felt far outside Southern California — not just across the U.S. but around the world.
Lalo Alcaraz got his start as an editorial cartoonist at San Diego State University’s student newspaper The Daily Aztec before going on to create the first nationally-syndicated, politically-themed Latino daily comic strip, “La Cucaracha.” More recently, he’s worked as a cultural consultant on the Pixar film “Coco” and the upcoming animated Nickelodeon show, “The Casagrandes.”
“It’s a job I wish didn’t exist, you know, because if we had adequate representation, if we had culturally competent people that really knew their stuff, you wouldn’t need to drop me in from outer space on a project,” Alcaraz said at a panel at the L’ATTITUDE conference in San Diego last month. “To Pixar’s credit, they were like, ‘We want this done right.’”
He recently met with The Conversation podcast at The San Diego Union-Tribune to talk about growing up in the San Diego region, what inspires his art, the challenges of publishing an editorial cartoon in the politically charged climate of 2019 and how he’s taken all he’s learned to Hollywood.
Here are some excerpts of the interview. Listen to the entire conversation here.
What was growing up in the San Diego region like for you?
“I grew up a kind of typical Mexican border kid. My mom came through Tijuana. She lived there for 10 years in the ‘50s from 1948 to 1958 and then was undocumented for a bit and then got her papers as a nanny in La Mesa. My dad came, I think, through Texas from Zacatecas, Mexico. My mom came from Mazatlán, Sinaloa and they met at Helix High School, the high school I went to, in an English as a Second Language (ESL) class, sometime early 1961 or 1962. Their desire to assimilate and fit in and learn English — it only took my mom 50 years to learn English — got them together and created me. And then I eventually graduated from that high school. I’d like to find that class where they met and put a plaque... they’d remove it the next day. I grew up in Lemon Grove after living in various cities and back and forth — Logan Heights and Tijuana for a tiny bit — but I grew up basically in Lemon Grove. It was like Mayberry, but SoCal style. It was a time of, kind of a lot of racism and police profiling. We’d get pulled over on our bicycles by the sheriffs. My parents were treated pretty poorly and it made me the bitter old cholo that I am today.”
Would you say growing up here influences your art?
“It is everything. That’s what kind of sharpened my sense of injustice.”
How much of yourself do you put into the characters in ‘La Cucaracha?’
“They’re definitely me. Half of me is angry all the time, wants to tell everyone how they’re wrong constantly, never has an incorrect opinion, and the other half of me just wants to chill and sit on the couch and drink a beer and watch endless hours of crap TV. Preferably science fiction crap. ... I’m usually more of the angry cucaracha.”
How would you say life for Latinos in America has changed or not changed since you’ve started illustrating it?
“Sometimes I’ll see a cartoon from 1994 and all you have to do is change the date on it because obviously we’re living in a super, hyper anti-immigrant time — not everyone, I mean, where some people think it’s ok to be that way — so, you know, I think society goes in cycles instead of progressing forward sometimes, I feel. So things have changed, they haven’t changed. The thing that has changed is, you know, society’s catching up to the things that I was saying 25 years ago, especially stuff about show biz and representation and it’s just becoming a thing. That’s why I’m fully employed. I’m fully overemployed these days in Hollywood so, you know, we’re getting more representation, but it’s still not enough.”
What can you tell us about the show you’re working on now?
“I am a consulting producer, cultural consultant and gadfly and freelance writer on this show called “The Casagrandes,” and it’s on Nickelodeon. It’s for ages 6 to11, and it’s the first animated show about a big Mexican-American family. It’s a spin-off from a show called “The Loud House,” which is one of the top shows there at Nickelodeon. The character, Ronnie Anne, is a little Mexican-American girl who was a super popular character on the loud house so they decided to spin that off, move her, her brother and her mom from Royal Woods, this Michigan suburb where “The Loud House” is set, to Great Lakes City, which is like a fake Chicago kind of amalgam of a bunch of cities — to go live with the mom’s family. They live in a big apartment building. The abuela, the grandma, is the building supervisor and they have a market, a mercado, on the ground floor. ... We’re making it as authentic as possible.”
Is it funny? Serious?
“It is very funny and it’s a good co-viewing show. I watched 10 years of Nickelodeon shows when my kids were little, so if you are that parent, you can watch this show because we sneak in a lot of funny adult things that kind of get by everybody but not the grown ups watching.”
“The Casagrandes” premieres on Nickelodeon on Oct. 14.
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From Animation Magazine:
‘The Casagrandes’: A Giant Step for Latinx Representation
***This story originally appeared in the November ‘19 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 294)***
Michael Rubiner and Miguel Gonzalez
Bursting onto television screens this fall, The Casagrandes follows a large, loving family living together in the big city. A companion to the Emmy Award-winning The Loud House, the new 2D-animated series highlights the culture, humor and love of growing up in a multi-generational Mexican-American family, and is set to debut October 14 on Nickelodeon.
The Loud House, which debuted in May 2016 and is centered around 11-year-old Lincoln Loud and his 10 sisters, gives an inside look at what it takes to survive the chaos of a huge family. The Casagrandes moves the action to Great Lakes City, where Lincoln’s friend Ronnie Anne embarks on a new life which promises to be an adventure, especially now that she lives under one roof with her grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins and a sass-talking parrot. The household is set up above the family-run mercado, which serves as a gathering place for the entire neighborhood.
The Casagrandes are no stranger to television, having made their debut in The Loud House special “The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos” in Season 2. The family appeared throughout the third season of The Loud House and had a five-episode arc in Season 4, beginning with the premiere episode, “Friended!” Additional crossover episodes are also in the works for Season 5.
Both series are executive produced by Mike Rubiner (KaBlam!) and produced by Karen Malach (The Legend of Korra, Bunsen Is a Beast), with the animation completed in Canada by Jam Filled Entertainment. Award-winning cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz serves as a cultural consultant and consulting producer on The Casagrandes, and Alan Foreman (Welcome to the Wayne) is supervising producer.
Fresh, New Territory
Rubiner, who has worked on The Loud House since it began production in 2014 and helped develop The Casagrandes, was gratified to see the positive reaction the new characters received following their debut in “Relative Chaos.” “We really liked the characters a lot, and we just thought, ‘Well, maybe there’s a series here,’” he recounts. “The idea of featuring a Latinx family gave us a lot of new territory to explore,” he continues, noting that moving the characters from the rural setting of The Loud House into a big city, and adding a large, multi-generational family, reflected the lives of the Latinx community in a way that would be relatable.”
“It just gave us all these new places to go,” Rubiner continues. “What is it like living in the city? What is it like being part of a big, multi-generational family living in this building together? And what can we explore and portray about Mexican-American and Latinx culture? I think a lot of cultures in this country can relate to that kind of family situation. We wanted The Casagrandes to be relatable to kids, grounded in real stories about real families. But we also knew that we really wanted it to accurately reflect Mexican-American culture, so we really kept an eye on both of those things as we developed the show.”
Alcaraz, who is the creator of the first nationally syndicated, politically themed Latino daily comic strip, La Cucaracha, and has previously served as cultural consultant on projects like Pixar’s Oscar-winning animated feature Coco, says he’s been waiting for a show like The Casagrandes “since television was invented,” noting that — next to immigration — Mexican-American representation in Hollywood has always been a primary cause for him. “It’s hugely important because I remember growing up and not seeing any brown people on TV. But we’ve been inching forward,” he says.
“I did not think I was ever going to see this many shows that have Latino characters,” Alcaraz observes. “It’s just a handful, but that’s a huge shift from zero, you know? And then, when they’re done right, it’s just the world. I mean, look at Coco. We did that right, and people responded to it because everything was true, authentic, honest.”
The star of The Casagrandes is 11-year-old Ronnie Anne Santiago (voiced by Izabella Alvarez), who moves to Great Lakes City with her big brother, Bobby (Carlos PenaVega), and their mother, Maria Casagrande Santiago (Sumalee Montano), to live with their extended family. Bobby works at the family’s mercado, which he hopes to take over one day, and Maria is a hardworking nurse who treasures her time with her kids.
Other family members include Ronnie Anne and Bobby’s uncle, Carlos “Tio” Casagrande (Carlos Alazraqui); his wife, Frida “Tia” Casagrande (Roxana Ortega); and their four kids: confident, vintage-inspired eldest daughter, 17-year-old Carlota (Alexa PenaVega); sunshiny 13-year-old CJ (Jared Kozak), who has Down Syndrome; the precociously ambitious eight-year-old Carl (Alex Cazares); and playful, rambunctious, non-verbal one-year-old toddler, Carlito. At the head of the family is Carlos and Maria’s father, Hector “Abuelo” Casagrande (Ruben Garfias), who is a professor of cultural studies at a local college, and their mother, Rosa “Abuela” Casagrande (Sonia Manzano), a gifted cook who has a sixth sense about knowing when anyone in her house is hungry.
Rounding out the cast, Eugenio Derbez lends his voice as Ronnie Anne and Bobby’s father, Dr. Santiago, a physician who is living and working in Peru; Ken Jeong voices neighbor Stanley Chang, a friendly and patient train conductor; and Melissa Joan Hart voices Stanley’s wife Becca Chang, a quirky, smart and funny zoologist.
Cultural Inspirations
The Casagrandes shares the visual style of The Loud House, but with a vibrant color palette that puts Mexican heritage fully in the spotlight. Art director Miguel Gonzalez (The Loud House, Uncle Grandpa, Book of Life) describes the aesthetic of The Loud House as based on mid-century Sunday comics. “The Loud House uses a lot of browns and earth tones, but with our world we wanted to be a little bit more bold and vivid with the color scheme,” he explains, noting that he and his team of 12 artists took inspiration from things found in Mexican culture like the colorful papel picado garlands of cut paper, luchador masks and the vibrant sugar skulls of Día de los Muertos. “We just wanted to incorporate as much of that as possible into our world,” he says.
In addition to representing Mexican culture, it was also important for the production team to maintain a consistent visual style with The Loud House. “We knew Lincoln was going to appear in some of the episodes, so we couldn’t go too far from that world, because it would just look too weird to have him come into this world and be in a totally different style,” Gonzalez notes.
“It’s not every day that you get to draw characters that look like you,” Gonzalez, who is Mexican American, continues, “I don’t think people realize how important that is to kids, you know? Like, there’s someone that looks like you on TV and that’s cool. Not every culture can relate to that, but the little kids I talk to who are Mexican American, they just can’t wait to see the show, because the characters look like them.”
The Casagrandes premieres Monday, Oct. 14 at 1:30 p.m. on Nickelodeon. The show moves to its regular timeslot on Saturdays at 11:30 a.m. beginning Oct. 19.
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From Variety:
Nick Creates Multicultural World With Colorful ‘Loud House’ Spinoff ‘Casagrandes’
Nickelodeon is expanding the world of its popular toon “The Loud House” with the multicultural spinoff “The Casagrandes,” which premieres Monday, Oct. 14, at 1:30 p.m. ET/PT before moving to its regular timeslot on Saturdays at 11:30 a.m. beginning on Oct. 19.
The new series follows Lincoln Loud’s friend 11-year-old Ronnie Anne Santiago, who moves to the big city with her mother and older brother to live with their multigenerational Mexican-American family, the Casagrandes, over their family-owned mercado. Ronnie Anne and her brother Bobby were first introduced on the first season of “The Loud House” in the episode titled “Save the Date.” The extended Casagrande family appeared during season 2 in the episode “Relative Chaos.”
While the series visually still lives in “The Loud House” world, the design of “The Casagrandes” is deeply steeped in Mexican-American culture with its own color palette and designs.
“I think the color palette is definitely different and it’s something that is consciously and purposefully trying to evoke Mexican-American culture and life in the U.S.,” says executive producer Michael Rubiner, who also exec produces “The Loud House.” “We really relied on the art team and particularly people on the art team who are Mexican American, who really know that world well.”
One of those is art director Miguel Gonzalez.
“We couldn’t change it too much from ‘Loud House,’ because we knew Lincoln and those guys were going to come over to our show, but we did have some freedom with the color. That was the one thing I wanted to change with the show,” he says. “I pulled from Mexican folk art, like Papel Picado and Sugar Skulls, and the pottery and the textiles that you see in Mexico. I studied those patterns and color schemes to incorporate them into the style.”
Supervising director Miguel Puga says “The Casagrandes” is loosely based on his family. “I say ‘loosely’ because it’s a collaboration with myself and the writers. We all get together and pull things from different stuff with our families,” he explains. Puga says that the character of Abuela Rosa, Ronnie Anne’s grandmother, is based on his mother. “Just the way she is strong, makes sure you’re always eating and when she gets mad, she’ll throw you the chancla [shoe].”
Gonzalez says he used his own experiences as well to help create visual world of “The Casagrandes.” “A lot of it comes from my memory from visiting my grandma in Mexico and visiting my uncles’ and aunts’ houses. I try to incorporate some of that into the show.”
The overall looks of both “Casagrandes” and “The Loud House” are inspired by classic comic strips. “Both shows are influenced by vintage comic strips, like the ones you’d find in the newspaper,” Puga says. “It’s the quick, familiar, simple and comfortably warm shapes that we add in the ‘The Loud House’ that you’ll still find in ‘The Casagrandes.’ It’s a lot of little love letters to a lot of well-known comic-book artists like Walt Kelly (‘Pogo’), Hank Ketcham’s ‘Dennis the Menace’ and Charles Schultz’s ‘Peanuts.’ You’ll still see some of the same influences all over ‘Casagrandes,’ but with a burst of beautiful color everywhere and the music and everything in there. I can’t wait for everyone to see what we’re working on here.”
The show’s commitment to cultural representation goes beyond just its design and multicultural crew, but to its cast. The voice cast of the central Casagrande family members include Izabella Alvarez as Ronnie Anne, Carlos PenaVega as her brother Bobby, Sumalee Montano as her mother Maria, Carlos Alazraqui as her uncle Carlos, Roxana Ortega as her aunt Frida, Alexa PenaVega as her cousin Carlota, Jared Kozak as cousin CJ, Alex Cazares as cousin Carl, Ruben Garfias as her grandfather and Sonia Manzano as her grandmother. Additional cast includes Eugenio Derbez, who voices Ronnie Anne and Bobby’s father, a doctor who lives and works in Peru; as well as Ken Jeong, Melissa Joan Hart, Leah Mei Gold and Lexi Sexton as neighbors the Changs.
Says Rubiner: “One of the other aspects of ‘The Casagrandes’ I think is important to note is that it’s not just a kind of Latino show, but also a super multicultural show because the world of the Casagrandes is internationally diverse. The neighborhood they live in has people from all sorts of backgrounds. We consciously made an attempt to embrace that.”
“We’re bringing what real America looks like into this show,” echoes Puga. “You’re going to see all kinds of different diversities in these episodes where whoever watches it can point out a character in the background or point out a character that walks into the mercado and say, ‘Hey, that’s just like me.’ Or ‘Hey, that sounds like my mom.’ Or ‘Hey, that sounds like my brother or my sister.’ We have this opportunity to portray so many wonderful cultures in one show, and we’re going to need at least 30 seasons to do it.”
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From TV Insider:
Alexa & Carlos PenaVega Talk Their Nickelodeon Series 'The Casagrandes'
Alexa and Carlos PenaVega were both iconic for kids of the late '90s and early '00s, with many wishing they could be real-life Spy Kids or a member of Big Time Rush.
And now, the singer/actors — who are all grown up with kids of their own — are bringing more entertainment to today's children with their new Nickelodeon animated series, The Casagrandes.
The show, a spinoff of Nickelodeon's Loud House, chronicles the adventures of a Latinx family much like the PenaVegas, and the couple looks forward to being part of a diverse project that showcases their own culture.
TV Insider spoke with the PenaVegas about their characters on The Casagrandes.
The Casagrandes is a spinoff of Loud House. How did this idea come about?
Carlos: Well, we were doing some work with Loud House and Nickelodeon had always talked about if these characters do well, maybe we could do a spinoff show. Alexa and I had just moved to Hawaii so I was like, 'If we ever do a real show, how would we make that work if we’re in Maui?' We kind of just wrote it off and out of nowhere Nickelodeon was like, 'Let’s give your family their own show,' and they wanted to make it work from Maui. They really had all the ideas.
Alexa: What was really cool is that it was just so well-received. You have Loud House, which is already such a popular show, but then when The Casagrandes was introduced on Loud House, those episodes were just awesome, and people related to it so much. We’re both Hispanic, so to be able to see our families represented, even within a cartoon, was really cool.
Did becoming parents over the last few years inspire you to do a children’s show?
Alexa: I think that we’ve always been big kids, if you look at me and Carlos and everything that we’ve done. I would say that our kids certainly add to wanting to do the show, but really we still love animated movies, cartoons. To throw it back to what we’ve done in our past, Spy Kids was such an awesome opportunity and movie because we were breaking the rules a little bit. You didn’t really have kids in these cool roles like that, being world-changers. And then, it being a Latino family.
Spy Kids was kind of a break into that mold and then now to see where we are is such a fun time. It’s not just in our movies and TV, but we’re seeing it in our cartoons, it’s so colorful and so diverse and that’s what you see when you go to school every day. You don’t see one type of person.
Did you have any shows like this representing your culture growing up?
Alexa: Actually, yeah. Back in the day, we used to watch the George Lopez show, and I know Carlos used to watch it a lot. It was so fun, we really loved it. But I think what I really love about right now is that — at least for me — I don’t look at it like 'oh, that’s a Latino television show' or 'this represents that culture.' Now it’s just one big melting pot. It’s just, 'this is a show about people,' and I love that. It’s become so normal to have such a diverse group of people together that you don’t even think about it anymore.
What did you think about One Day at a Time being canceled on Netflix (before being picked up by Pop)? What can we do moving forward to get shows like The Casagrandes and One Day at a Time on TV?
Alexa: I didn’t actually know, we live on an island, so I don’t know too much about the backlash, but I think it comes down to the audience. At the end of the day, studios and all these people would love to put out great content and things that they love, but sometimes some of the shows that happen to be favorites unfortunately don’t always have the best ratings or views. Financially it isn’t feasible for networks to always keep them on for whatever reason so I think it does come down to audience.
For us, we’re super fortunate to have awesome relationships with our fans to where it helps push them into wanting to watch the projects that we’re a part of and it helps get an audience there for the show. I think it really comes down to, if you like a show or if you like a movie, whatever it is, you as a fan or as an audience member have to support it in any way you can. Because at the end of the day, if it’s not being watched — regardless of if it’s meaningful or important — it all comes down to, a lot of times, the finances.
Carlos: I think for people to take it personally, I just don’t agree with it. Like Alexa said, shows get canceled all the time.
Alexa: We’ve been on so many canceled TV shows.
Carlos: Whether people want to believe because it was a Latino show or whatever, to me, at the end of the day, it’s still a business. The people running that business are going to make the best decisions for them and people can’t take that personally.
Are there any characters on the show that are based on people that you know in real life?
Alexa: [Laughs] Not that I’m aware of but it cracks me up because Carlos’ character Bobby, it’s not that I’m biased, he’s my favorite. He makes me laugh, he’s goofy and looney and that literally is who my husband is. I feel like Bobby might be just like a spinoff of you in real life.
Carlos: [Laughs] Come on now.
Alexa: Maybe just slightly goofier, with a higher voice.
What about you Alexa?
Carlotta is a girly girl. She’s a fashion-forward, feisty little thing. It’s fun because that’s not who I am but I really enjoy playing her. But at the end of the day, what I love about this show is that it's all about family. So, what I love is that they can get into all these crazy antics and fight with one another, but they all come together for the love of the family and those family values. I think it’s really great for kids to see these days.
You both have been on TV and in movies, how has it been venturing to voice acting?
Carlos: It’s been great, Nickelodeon has been so accommodating. We literally live in the middle of the ocean and we do our voiceover recordings and get it done. Lex and I are just super thankful that they’ve been willing to make it work. I’m currently in the process of building a little vocal recording studio in the house so that we could do our sessions right from home and they’ve been helping us out. Who knows, hopefully we get picked up for many seasons and we could keep doing this for a long time and literally do it from our home.
Alexa: But it’s definitely a different experience. People don’t realize, but voiceover is hard.
Carlos: Yeah, it’s exhausting.
Alexa: Because it’s a lot of high-energy packed into a small amount of time. When you come out of a session, usually your voice is shot, you’re exhausted because you’ve been singing and laughing and jumping. There’s just so much energy packed into such a small amount of time.
Carlos, we know you from your time in Big Time Rush. Is there any chance you’ll be singing on the show?
Carlos: I think I did sing a little bit, whether it was serious singing or not, I don’t remember.
Alexa: I think you did sing a little bit before in Loud House, no?
Carlos: I think I do sing a little bit and there may be some more singing coming.
The show has an incredible cast, with voice talent like Ken Jeong and Melissa Joan Hart. How has it been working with them?
Alexa: I think that’s another hard part about animation, we're all separated, so the only time you really get to see people is during press. But since I just had a baby, we actually haven't left the island and we haven't spent time with anybody. It's really cool to be on a show with these people. I think everybody going to be super-excited just about the show, about the people lending their voices, and to see such a fun, diverse group of people in one place.
The Casagrandes, Series Premiere, Monday, October 14, 1:30/12:30c, Nickelodeon
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