I was honored to be invited to the #BeOurGuestEvent, a Disney press junket for Beauty and the Beast, Moana Bluray, and other Disney and ABC TV programming. As a guest, my expenses were covered in return for a series of articles about my experiences and reviews of the programming.
Yesterday, I started sharing the experiences I had during a magical few days in LA to celebrate not only the release of Beauty and the Beast in theaters and the Moana Bluray DVD release, but also a number of other Disney and ABC shows being launched or returning to TV. You can find all our stories, past and upcoming by clicking on #BeOurGuestEvent. Today, I’m thrilled to tell you about the new Tangled TV series. Tangled comes to the Disney Channel first TODAY, Friday, March 10 at 8 pm ET with an hour long premiere called, Tangled: Before Ever After. Then Tangled: The Series will debut in its regular time slot of Fridays on Friday, March 24th at 7:30 pm ET.
What happens AFTER the princess meets her prince but BEFORE they get married and live happily ever after?
Haven’t you ever wanted to know? It’s the same question the producers of the Tangled TV series had when they thought about the movie. It’s the question Tangled: Before Ever after and Tangled: The Series will begin to answer as the series launches this week on the Disney Channel. If you remember the Tangled movie, Rapunzel and Flynn meet and begin to fall in love. Then, there was the movie short, Tangled: Ever After, where Rapunzel and Flynn/Eugene get married. But what happened in between those two moments?
During our #BeOurGuestEvent press junket, we had the opportunity screen Tangled: Before Ever After and to sit down with Tangled TV series executive producer Chris Sonnenburg and supervising producer Ben Balistreti and interview them about the Tangled TV series.
About Tangled: Before Ever After, the Disney Channel Original Movie to launch the Tangled TV series
The TV movie, which kicks off the highly-anticipated premiere of “Tangled: The Series” (debuting Friday, March 24th at 7:30/6:30c), unfolds as Rapunzel acquaints herself with her parents, her kingdom and the people of Corona. Her irrepressible spirit and natural curiosity about the world lead her to realize that there is so much more she needs to learn about the world and herself before she can assume her role as Princess of Corona.
Take a look at the trailer for Tangled: Before Ever After
My Tangled: Before Ever After movie review
Does this Tangled: Before Ever After trailer leave you with questions? Do you want to know what happens when Rapunzel returns to the castle after being gone so long? Do you want to know why she was out late at night? Do you want to know HOW and WHY she has her hair back? While I can’t answer all your questions, I don’t want to give away anything from the series, I will answer what I can. I can also tell you I loved the Tangled: Before Ever After Disney Channel Original Movie and I most certainly will be watching it again with my boys TONIGHT. The Tangled TV series will show the struggles of being a teenager and while Rapunzel may be a princess in a castle, many of her challenges are those that other kids and tweens can relate to.
Tangled TV series producers Chris Sonnenburg and Ben Balistreti took time to pose for pictures with each of the bloggers on the #BeOurGuestEvent press junket.
Photo credit: Coralie Hughes Seright, LovebugsAndPostcards.com
Highlights from our Question & Answer Session with the Tangled TV series producers Chris Sonnenburg and Ben Balistreti
More about the creation of the Tangled TV series storyline in Tangled: Before Ever After and Tangled: The Series
Chris started the interview telling us how there was this obvious gap of time between the moments of Rapunzel and Eugene falling in love and getting married. He elaborated more for us.
“I was wondering like well, what happened? Did they get to know each other a little bit more? Like what happened in between that time. And then there’s this great line at the end of the movie where Eugene Fitzherbert, says after years and years of asking and asking I finally said yes.”
“It started to become like what do I have to say about this time in these people’s lives, and young people’s lives about getting to know yourself, getting to know the people in your lives, getting to understand your relationship with your parents?”
Consider that when children first saw the movie, Tangled in 2010, they were likely tweens or younger. Now, years later these same tweens are teens. When Chris thought about his own children and how they are adjusting and growing up as teens it caused him to reflect on Rapunzel. “How is this character that I loved so much as a kid coming to grips with this part of her life?” With that Chris was inspired to create the Tangled TV series to tell the story of how it might be to grow up as a teenager who is also a princess.
Rapunzel’s golden hair….It’s back!
Yes, Rapunzel’s golden hair is back! We won’t tell you how it comes back, but we’ll share why it’s back. Chris explained it to us like this.
“Rapunzel’s hair represents her personality. It’s bigger than life. It’s bright. It’s long. It shines. It’s magical. It’s pretty much who Rapunzel is. And I think Rapunzel has to have long blonde hair for it to kind of just read as the character.”
You might have noticed in the Tangled: Before Ever After trailer that Rapunzel’s golden hair can’t be cut. The scissors actually break. This is a new twist to the Rapunzel story and Chris also talked about that with us.
“But really for me the trick about it and what ultimately was the trick for the filmmakers in the original movie was to give the hair a reason for being blonde and for being long and in our case, [with Tangled: Before Ever After] being uncuttable. [Rapunzel’s hair] being unbreakable has its own reason, that we’re going to get into as we go along in the story.”
The story behind Rapunzel’s journal
During Tangled: Before Ever After, Rapunzel’s mom passes down two journals to Rapunzel. One journal detailed the adventures Rapunzel’s mom, Queen Arianna had growing up. The other is blank for Rapunzel to use to chronicle her own adventures. We talked at length about the inspiration behind the journal and the creation of it.
The inspiration behind Rapunzel’s journal
Chris shared with us how his older daughter, Arianna (yes, Queen Arianna. Chris named the Queen after her) inspired the journal.
“…right when we were breaking the story and figuring out what everything was going to be, she [Arianna] had gone on this trip to Mexico with a huge group of people to build houses for kids in Mexico. She was 14 and had just turned 14, and she was going on this big trip. I didn’t know if she was ready for it. …. [Was] she ready for this life of traveling beyond the borders and all this kind of huge life excitement. And she went and she had come back and they had given her these journals to take notes and get to know people and stuff.”
“And when she had come back the little journal was completely covered in drawings of the little girls that she met and how she learned how to put a hinge on a door and she learned how to do all this fun stuff and she dropped her phone in water and all this… she kept all these drawings of her journey. And I was like that’s what Rapunzel would do. She would keep a journal, she’s very creative. Rapunzel’s very much a storyteller and that’s how she would do it. So, we immediately said well, let’s give Rapunzel a journal that she can keep record of, because she’s going to want to paint on the road.”
The creation of Rapunzel’s journal
Later in the interview, with the Tangled TV series producers Chris and Ben, when I asked Chris about his hobby of making movie prop replicas and if he had made any related to the Tangled TV series, I had no idea his answer would lead to another fascinating story about Rapunzel’s journal. Chris answered,
“Well, how fun was it for me and Claire Keane, who created the murals in the movie, all the murals in her tower. She and I are really good friends and we’ve been friends for years. So, when we had this journal, Claire and I got together and we made the physical journal. We made a journal out of leather and she did all the illustrations on the inside and we weathered it. And we made it look like she [Rapunzel] had gone on this large journey.”
Chris continued.
“There was nicks in it. There was parts of it burned. I’ll tell you a quick story that was really fun. I wanted it to look worn, so we had two versions. I had a clean version that I wanted to show the executives that mom gave her that was all clean and crisp and blank. I pitched the whole story because we pitch the entire story and then at the end I wanted to pull out the journal to show this is what she comes home with, and it had gone through her whole adventure. And I wanted there to be this and that to show it had gone through all these adventures. So, it had like burn marks and magic scars on it and nicks from a sword and stuff on it.”
“And I wanted it to look like a horse had stomped on it. We didn’t have pages in it but Claire had painted the outside of it with these birds and all this fun stuff. But I wanted to get a, a horseshoe and smash it into the leather to make it look like a horse had stepped on it. So, Claire had done her painting and we had weathered it a little bit and I was in my backyard and I had gotten a horseshoe and I placed it right where I wanted.”
“And I have this giant hammer that I was going to smash it on to and I didn’t have the heart to do it. [Chris thought] this is going to mess it up. I couldn’t do it. And I called Claire and I’m like Claire, I got it on the thing she goes yeah, just hit it. Just go for it. And I’m like I can’t. [I] ended up not doing it. I couldn’t bring myself to, because if something went wrong, it was going to break the thing, so I ended up not doing it. But I really pulled from my weathering making movie prop stuff to make it. But again, when you hold that thing it’s almost like you’re holding a piece of Rapunzel’s life story, a physical part of who she is.”
It was really fascinating to have Tangled TV series producers Chris Sonnenburg and Ben Balistreri talk with us and answer our questions. It may have only been a 30 minute interview, but we learned so much about the Tangled TV series. I can’t wait to see how Rapunzel, Eugene, and their families’ stories unfold over the series.
Catch the Tangled TV Series on the Disney Channel THIS WEEK!
- Starting TODAY, Friday, March 10 at 8 pm ET with an hour long premiere called, Tangled: Before Ever After. You can watch the first five minutes of Tangled: Before Ever After in this YouTube video.
- Then Tangled: The Series will debut in its regular time slot of Fridays on Friday, March 24th at 7:30 pm ET.
Tomorrow, our #BeOurGuestEvent series continues with a look at the returning TV series, Baby Daddy and the Baby Shower games we played with the Baby Daddy cast. You can get caught up with our #BeOurGuestEvent series anytime by clicking on #BeOurGuestEvent.