What drove the choice to go with live action over traditional animation?
Cartoon Network was looking to diversify its programming, and they wanted to offer more options to the young viewers. They had experimented with live programming, and I believe they’re also going to experiment with some sports programming, and they wanted to venture into live dramas because there’s really nothing out there at all in television as far as drama goes, just for kids and teens. There are shows for them — certainly a lot of sitcoms and cartoons and things like that, but there was really no one doing anything that was a little bit of a sci-fi mystery, just simply about kids, for kids. And they said, “I bet there’s an audience here for this.” While looking around for what they thought would be a perfect match, they started talking to me about some ideas I had. I always go back to childhood for my ideas, and sometimes not the most pleasant memories of childhood. And I said, what if you took a kid and put him in a situation away from home — and a boarding school is perfect for
