The Children Selection and Annie Award-winning sequence The Proud Household has been a Disney viewer favourite because it first aired in 2001. 17 years after its sequence finale in 2005, the present was rebooted in 2022 as The Proud Household: Louder and Prouder, with all its authentic characters – together with Penny Proud, greatest associates Dijonay and Zoey, dad and mom Oscar and Trudy, twin siblings BeBe and CeCe, and grandmother Suga Mama – all two years older. Louder and Prouder was shortly greenlit for Season 2 forward of its first season’s finale, and now the wait for brand new episodes is over.
The second season of the award-winning The Proud Household: Louder and Prouder premieres on Disney+ Wednesday, February 1. The present facilities round 16-year-old Penny and her household and associates as they navigate life in Smithville throughout the 2020s. Louder and Prouder continues to inform entertaining, laugh-out-loud tales – from meals fights and pissed off porcupines to bull driving and residential heists – whereas highlighting culturally important experiences of the Black neighborhood in addition to addressing common matters. Varied storylines this season embrace self-worth, interracial relationship, and Juneteenth.
Take a look at the trailer…
Disney Tv Animation just lately hosted a press convention with The Proud Household creator Bruce Smith and fellow govt producer Ralph Farquhar, who each govt produce the brand new present, moderated by the studio’s VP of Content material and Inclusion Jay Francis, to debate the revival’s “louder and prouder” second season.
“They will count on a lot bolder storytelling [this season],” says Smith. “Season 1 was to get us off the mark, reintroduce you to the world that was arrange the primary time round and convey in additional characters. This time round, now that we have the characters launched and laid into the panorama, we simply are telling tales that we really feel like are simply a lot nearer to the Black expertise.”
Forged members reprising their roles from the unique sequence and returning for Season 2 are Kyla Pratt as Penny Proud; Tommy Davidson as Oscar Proud; Paula Jai Parker as Trudy Proud; JoMarie Payton as Suga Mama; Cedric the Entertainer as Uncle Bobby; Karen Malina White as Dijonay Jones; Soleil Moon Frye as Zoey Howzer; Alisa Reyes as LaCienega Boulevardez; Carlos Mencia as Felix Boulevardez; Maria Canals-Barrera as Sundown Boulevardez; Alvaro Gutierrez as Papi; Raquel Lee Bolleau as Nubia Gross; and Marcus T. Paulk as Myron. Recurring new voices that may also return for the brand new season embrace Keke Palmer as Maya Leibowitz-Jenkins; Billy Porter and Zachary Quinto as Randall and Barry Leibowitz-Jenkins; EJ Johnson as Michael Collins; Asante Blackk as Kareem; Artist “A Boogie” Dubose as Francis “KG” Leibowitz-Jenkins; Bresha Webb as CeCe; and Aiden Dodson as BeBe.
“Once we set out, all the pieces type of surrounds Penny Proud and her continued progress, and together with her relationship together with her dad and mom, her relationship together with her associates,” says Smith. “So, empowerment has all the time been the important thing. Younger Black woman empowerment. That is what the backbone of the present is constructed on. And we encompass her with a whole lot of characters of colour to actually perceive how that progress can apply to her and the way she and the issues that she learns could be put upon her associates. That agenda does not actually change for us.”
“We’ve received an enormous forged and a whole lot of characters that persons are inquisitive about,” says Farquhar. “So on this Season 2, you are going to see the storylines deal with among the different characters, resembling Maya and KG and Zoe. However count on some actual difficult tales. We soar into our Blackness if you’ll.”
Smith provides, “And that is the enjoyable of it… after we see Ralph and the writers actually jam and inform some tales which have nice substance to them. For me, I’ve by no means labored on a present that has such relatable substance and characters that I do know. So, you’ll be able to actually lean into the animation features of it in ways in which I hadn’t actually performed earlier than.”
Reflecting on the start of his journey with The Proud Household – getting pulled off a golf course by Smith and being proven plans for a present that will fill the African American household illustration void in animated TV – Farquhar says the reboot has been his and Smith’s probability to not solely handle bolder matters, but additionally attain a wider viewers demographic.
“We may converse our fact in a extra direct approach as a result of we had been geared for the complete household viewing expertise versus simply the kids facet of it the primary time round,” explains Farquhar. “And regardless that we had been all the time a present supposed for household viewing, I feel on the time, Disney was solely within the kids’s POV, however we snuck within the grownup POV anyway.”
He continues, “It is fascinating as a result of the present was written in such a approach that adults received sure issues the children did not get, and the children received sure issues the adults did not get. So, I feel one of many feedback we see on social media rather a lot is a whole lot of the children who at the moment are adults are going, ‘Oh wow, I did not actually get all this again within the day.’ So the takeaway is that we had been a bit bit extra intentional in our slyness, if you’ll, again then, when it comes to the matters we had been coping with. So, I feel persons are getting, from the unique episodes much more out of it as adults. After which additionally as a result of they’re most likely dad and mom now and so they’re going, ‘Properly, youngsters are rather a lot.’ Now they’re most likely figuring out extra with Trudy and Oscar versus Penny and Dijonay.”
However one of many largest variations from 2001’s present and at present’s is the gender identification when it comes to the LGBTQ neighborhood.
“When it comes to the portrayal of characters, particularly Michael, earlier than we needed to be talking code about his gender identification,” says Farquhar. “After which additionally, we included new characters into our world, voiced by Zachary Quinto and Billy Porter; same-sex dad and mom who’re the dad and mom to [additional new characters] Maya and KG.”
Smith provides, “And even with the characters that we already had, you may be stunned at twists and turns that occurred with Dijonay this season. We get to actually do a deeper dive into the characters that you could be suppose you already know, and you may uncover that these characters are way more than what you thought.”
As The Proud Household: Louder and Prouder continues to rack up the awards – together with a Kids’s and Household Emmy Award for excellent casting for an animated program, 4 NAACP nominations, an Annie Award nomination, and a GLAAD Media Award nomination –Smith and Farquhar credit score the present’s success, above all else, to its trustworthy storytelling.
“The present is created by Bruce Smith, and who does Oscar appear to be? This brother proper right here,” says Farquhar, gesturing to Smith. “We come by all the pieces in a really trustworthy approach. And whereas nobody present can characterize all the pieces to everyone, we do our greatest to point out a range inside our neighborhood. I am sufficiently old to have grown up at a time earlier than housing desegregation. Once I grew up again within the ’50s, early ’60s, on our block, there was a health care provider who lived on the nook, there was my middle-class household, there was a household that owned an ice cream manufacturing unit, after which there was the Jackson household that had 10 youngsters and had been working class.”
The producer continues, “As soon as desegregation occurred, all of the individuals who had cash moved out and left everybody else behind. In Smithville, which is called after [Bruce], we have now an idealized model of Black life that hearkens again to the ’50s after we had a totally balanced neighborhood.”
Whether or not it is addressing colorism, completely different parenting types, or the significance of empowering younger voices, The Proud Household: Louder and Prouder, because it all the time has, affords a myriad of life classes served with laughs that may, hopefully, proceed to enlighten a brand new technology of viewers. And to followers of the sequence hoping to in the future share their very own tales with the world, Smith affords this recommendation…
“Stay your life when you’re looking for your craft,” he says. “As a result of tales come from fact. Essentially the most trustworthy, greatest tales instructed come from the reality.”
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all issues anime. She’s reported on quite a few tales from activist information to leisure. Discover extra about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
