Jetpack’s Dominic Gardiner

Dominic Gardiner, the CEO of Jetpack Distribution, talks to TV Kids about comedy’s elemental role in kids’ content, the kinds of laughs with global legs and streaming platforms’ place in providing programming that calls the entire family to the screen.

From action-adventure series with tiny heroes battling outsized villains to those with an educational component that tackle science and environmental matters, series made for kids tend to serve up the mayhem and messages with a helping of laughs. It’s long been true and will continue to be true that kids want to laugh, making comedy an enduring high-performer—within its genre and across the genre spectrum. It also has the potential to travel to children the world over, and with the right approach, see parents join in on the fun.

TV KIDS: What is the overall demand for kids’ comedy?
GARDINER: It’s kind of a truism that comedy is the essential component for most genres. Even if a series isn’t supposed to be funny, it’s good to have comedy in it.  In kids, if you look at genres and subgenres—take action—kids’ action almost always has comedy in it. In grownup content, you can have action that is just purely action and you’re going to have genres like horror, whereas in kids, every subgenre will also have comedy in it. It’s sort of essential. Preschool, education, adventure, everything has got comedy in it. Even if you try to do factual. There are a few dramas that don’t [have comedy in it] because they’re dealing with a particularly serious subject, but on the whole, if you’re trying to get kids to pay attention, then comedy is the best way to hold their eyes. Comedy is like the currency of kids, the way kids behave with each other. They’re always laughing, they’re always making jokes or doing silly things. That’s just what kids love to do. There are a few series that are very famous for being educationally driven, but at the same time are very funny too. And I think that’s a testament to how important comedy is.

TV KIDS: What kind of comedy travels best? And what are the potential challenges of translating humor?
GARDINER: The really basic gags—the custard pie in the face—if done well, with comedic timing, are universally funny. The pie in the face, regardless of what part of the planet you’re from, that’s a funny gag. You don’t need to explain that or translate that. Then there are other types of humor that are more sophisticated, that are based on parody or situations that may or may not be relevant, depending on where the person lives. You’re thinking about kids from all parts of the planet [and] in terms of how old they are as well. A lot of things can be very funny if you’re a bit older and you can understand the situation that it’s in. But if the situation is alien to you in any way, or maybe it’s a situation that kids associate mostly with grownups—maybe it’s like driving a car. Those things are not necessarily funny for kids because they don’t know how to drive cars so they don’t see the funny side of it. Comedy has got to be really relatable and there are some universal comedies. Obviously, it’s much easier if you’re selling something that’s very physical and doesn’t need any explanation. Some shows have done that very well recently, particularly using global platforms. They’ve hit the mark. While there some shows that I think are hilarious, super funny, expertly scripted and with really cool visuals, but sometimes they just don’t work everywhere because maybe they’re a little bit too sophisticated. Maybe that kind of humor hasn’t quite taken off yet [in parts of the world]. I think humor is quite relative to where you’re from and how old you are, but also just the types of humor that are kicking around on adult shows eventually floating down into kids’ shows.

TV KIDS: What are the different approaches to comedy for preschool, bridge, tween/YA?
GARDINER: One, that it’s relatable. The jokes about mom and dad are hilarious when you’re 4 and 5 because mom and dad are pretty much everything in your world. Then maybe as you get a bit older, the jokes are about your friends or situations your friends are in. They can be quite funny too because your friends become quite important to you. And as you get a bit older, maybe in the world around you things start to feel funny. Plus, once you’ve matured, your ability to differentiate different types of comedy kicks in. Then maybe when you’re 8, you look back at things you laughed at when you were 4 and you go, Hmm that’s not so funny anymore. That terrible knock-knock joke or something that you learned, you’re like, I’m too grown up, too sophisticated, I’m a big kid now. I’m 8, right? Then by the time you’re 12, you’re like, I find it funny again because I don’t have to be worried about being mature. I can be like, Yeah, I’m 12, I’m a big kid, I can see the difference. So those kind of four to five-year developments in kids every five years, six years, seven years, their humor changes. By the time they’re 14, they’re pretty much adults, right? They find the same kind of things funny that we find funny.

TV KIDS: Are you seeing more family-viewing shows with jokes for everyone— boys, girls, older siblings, even parents?
GARDINER: It’s the holy grail. Television is very segmented. We talk very specifically to very narrow demographics. I’m talking about the way we’ve been doing it for the last 20 years, because we’ve got segmented channels, segmented brands with content that’s segmented by gender, by age. And now, as everything is broadening, the world is broadening. The thing the theatrical cartoons and shows for kids have been doing for a long time is getting jokes in for everybody. Right at the top there you’ve got Pixar’s Toy Story-type of entertainment that’s for everybody. If you can get that right—and it’s incredibly hard to get that kind of comedy that’s going to hold the attention of a 3- and 4-year-old but at the same time get the parents in—that’s where we want to be. That’s where the newer platforms are positioning themselves, as family-entertainment destinations.

TV KIDS: Would you say broadcasters as well? Or mostly the new platforms?
GARDINER: It’s going to be difficult to undo what [the broadcasters] have done when they talk about how they’re very kid-centric—We know kids, we’re kids, we do everything for kids, we do preschool kids, we do kids in the middle, we do bridge. But never have any of their branded kids’ networks said we also do stuff for mom and dad. That would be weird because it’s a kids’ thing, they’re kids’ content only. The new platforms have come up and gone, We’re a platform for everybody but we also have some kids’ stuff. You can choose who you want to be when you’re logged in, but it’s not like this brand that shouts, We know kids. It gives them a lot broader palette to work with because they can do all of the different types of things.
The new platforms obviously don’t have to worry about daytime and dayparts. They’re just everything all of the time. It creates that opportunity to do something that gets everyone together. And that’s probably more of a family reaction, where the house has become segmented through devices. The single-device family, which existed for 30-50 years, and then there was a TV in the bedroom, and now everybody has a device under their nose. We, as a society, are sort of recognizing that this is driving families apart. Let’s all eat together, let’s entertain together. There’s an element of family entertainment in a lot of what we see in what we call light entertainment. It’s shows for adults but kids can watch. Then there are movies that are made specifically for kids but parents can enjoy too because they’re still funny and well made—layered jokes, characters. Then there’s stuff that’s like, who knows who it’s for? Like the Simpsons. No one really knew. For adults, for kids? That kind of stuff that’s just animation so naturally you think it’s for young people but obviously it’s not. There’s a lot of stuff as well that’s just for kids but it’s making it to a degree that parents are like, OK, I can watch this. There are things that people can do to make shows that can engage kids, make them laugh, but at the same time recognizing that there are parents who might possibly want to watch it too.

This interview was conducted prior to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Media companies are currently shifting their strategies in the wake of production postponements.