by Josie Sullivan
The new animated short-form comedy series Childish Deano has accumulated 1.8+ million views across socials. Only a month after its first episode’s release on social media, Childish Deano has gained significant buzz on platforms such as Tik-Tok, YouTube, and IGTV.
Created by Dean ‘Deano’ Thomas and David Ferrier, the series is inspired by Dean’s personal childhood experiences growing up as a Noongar man in Western Australia.
Over the six bite-size episodes, which Dean described as sugar hits, we get to know Deano as the loud-mouthed, rambunctious kid with a heart of gold.
We asked Deano about Childish Deano.
How did the project arise? And what was the process of creating it?
“Three years ago, Dave [Ferrier] and I made a 90 second clip, which we just funded ourselves, to see if it would work. That did kind of well online. So, we went to Screen Australia, and it was like a three-year process, you get writing, funding, you develop it, you lose confidence ten times, then you keep rewriting. And we just got to a point where we kind of knew exactly what it was. And that’s what you see in these six episodes. I’m just really proud of it. The overarching theme relates to anyone that hasn’t had a perfect home life but wasn’t aware of it at the time.”
With the show being drawn from your childhood experiences, is there a significant experience that was incorporated into the show?
“Yeah, for example, on a farm, we do an episode about death, and I shot a cockatoo with an air rifle. It simply just filled me with remorse, like, what have I done? Death is real? It sort of traumatised me. So, we made an episode out of that. The first episode, is just indicative of me never being prepared for anything, winging it all the time, and probably revealing too much information about my home life. So yeah, all core memories from my childhood have been put into the themes, and then obviously, just a bit of creative licence to make it a bit more palatable. But it’s all drawn from my chequered upbringing. But again, for me it was just a fun time. Only later in life, you realise, oh shit, that may not have been a normal upbringing.”
With the show being released on social media platforms like Tik-Tok, how has the reception been?
“The reception on Tik-Tok was unbelievable, because a lot of the audiences are from America and they’re just quoting it. When I was writing it, there’s no necessarily like, traditional gags, it’s just this kid’s verbal diarrhoea and his perspective that people seem to connect with and I think if anyone’s got a kid who might be borderline ADHD or just ‘extra’, I think they’re connecting to it. I think the kids who are watching it relate to Deano as well. So yeah, the response has been amazing and people tagging streamers in the comments; that was really affirming. You get a bit validated.”
@childishdeano First teaser clip for Childish Deano! 6 episodes start from Nov 7! . . #animation #cartoon #screenaustralia #nova100 #chrissiesamandbrowny #childishdeano
And do you feel like it creates room for more conversation where people can tag, like, comment and have this discussion on the app where it’s being streamed?
“Yeah, absolutely. The conversation, especially in the last episode, is about raising the age, the theme is young blackfellas getting locked up as early as 10. I wanted to raise the issue without being preachy, but just doing it from the perspective of a kid who is Noongar and it hits him that he is a cheeky boy. And then he’s convinced himself he’s going to jail, and he googles things, and he sort of spirals about it. I wanted to get that theme out there and without being preachy, just from the innocence of this kid. And that, to me, took the longest to write because I wanted to get that tone because anyone that feels like they’re being spoken to about how they should feel sort of turns it away, and I just wanted them to get this perspective. And then comments on that have just been so beautiful, like people going ‘I didn’t know this was happening’, which promotes them to look into it.
How important is it for you to get to share Deano’s individual experience surrounding his Aboriginality with viewers?
“Really important. For example, Shareena Clanton, who is in Wentworth, she plays my mom. I wanted her Indigenous voice to be there. Not from like a like a token perspective, she just talks normally and that to me is the important representation. I wanted just complete normality because, you know, blackfellas, if they’re included in certain narratives, often in the last couple of decades, it’s because they’re black. It’s so important to just have a Noongar voice and just a few words. Because again, I just wanted complete normality, but representation.”
And with so much buzz surrounding Childish Deano, how do you hope to extend what you’ve created in the future? What are the plans?
“Because the first six episodes are 4 to 5 minutes, it’s sort of like a proof of product. We want to extend it to maybe 7 to 10, at most 15 minutes. There are precedents for animation to work at that length. But because it’s like a comic strip, sort of in and out narrative, I don’t think the format would lend itself to half an hour, it’s just like these sugar hits. We want to talk to streamers, and Screen Australia are certainly interested in investing some more. Increase the length and get another 10 eps out there, about other poignant moments of Deano’s life.
“There’s an episode coming up about his first needle that I’ve written, ADHD diagnosis and his thoughts on that. His mum going through depression and Deano sort of seeing it and doing his best to lighten her world. I like that there’s heart to it at its core but at the end of the day, it’s just an eight-year-old running his mouth. But I think the fact that he’s so happy is why people are connecting with it.”
