Rock Paper Scissors Executive Producers On Nickelodeon Animation and Game Strategy

Nickelodeon’s new animated series Rock Paper Scissors follows the ridiculous adventures the trio faces as best friends and roommates who are overly competitive, but ultimately get through anything together. The series stars Ron Funches as Rock, Thomas Lennon as Paper, and Carlos Alazraqui as Scissors. Pop Culture Planet contributor Paola Cardenas met with executive producers Kyle Stegina and Josh Lehrman to talk about the show’s creation, animation style, the psychology behind the childhood game, and more.

All great ideas start somewhere and, for Lehrman, it came from an unexpected place. “I feel like most of the ideas Kyle and I have come from long brainstorming sessions,” he explained. “This was just something that came to me in the shower and it was one of those ideas that I think sometimes as a writer you have to figure out is this worth turning off the shower to write down. I pitched it to Kyle later that day and he immediately got it and liked it.”

Luckily, they were able to put their dream cast together! “It’s a wonderful testament to the show that they were so excited to be a part of it. We basically got everyone that we wanted,” he shared. “We were driving home from the [casting] meeting and we were like ‘Who would be good for rock? Ron Funches would be great’ and ‘What about Paper? Oh Thomas Lennon has a great intellectual voice, he’d be great for Paper.’ Carlos Alazraqui came on a little bit later because we wanted to find the right actor who could really get the vulnerability in Scissors because he can be a little bit of a jerk sometimes.”

The animation style mixes semi-realistic backgrounds and 2D figures that are reminiscent of the Disney series Fish Hooks. Lehrman credits Paul Watling and Amanda Li with designing the look and how it appeals to them. “There’s something about this show that — and I say this in the most positive way — it feels dumb sometimes. The look of the show just matched the scripts we wanted to write,” said Lehrman. “When we went into series, our supervising producer and director Bob Boyle and John Won who oversaw a lot of the art, they just really perfected the style and it’s just so pleasant to look at.”

While we all grew up with the classic game, this show is for kids of all ages. “I really truly believe this show is for everyone and it’s because you’re rooting for all the characters. You’re not just rooting for them because of a kid reason, it’s a universal reason,” Stegina notes. “Rock dreams [of being] an iconic male model. Paper wants to be a famous inventor, but struggling because he’s not very smart. Scissors dreams of having a dream. This is a guy who is kind of lost in life. He’s looking at Rock like ‘Well he has modeling and Paper has inventing, what’s my thing? I don’t have a thing.’ He’s searching for what his thing is going to be and what he’s good at. I think that’s just a universal thing whether you’re 10, or 30, or 50. Sometimes, you’ll be searching for ‘What’s my thing?’” Lehrman also added that some stories are thematic and that there’s a lot of humor and pretty emotional storylines that can cater to anyone.

Through it all, the heart of the story is friendship. “You have this balance of these three guys who really love each other, but also bicker all the time. That’s kind of nice to see. That’s a very valid form of friendship and that’s also how I feel like my friendships were as a kid. It feels very relatable and a nice thing for kids to see in this sort of avenue,” said Lehrman, with Stegina adding: “In a way, we want to show kids that you can still be best friends with someone and fight sometimes — or fight quite often. Sometimes you’ll see friendships portrayed on TV or movies as like this kind of ‘lovey dovey ooey gooey’ all the time. I think one thing we love about this is that their friendship feels realistic to us.”

Fans excited to see this show can expect the unexpected as we’ll get to see the characters explore wild stories and locations. “We have an episode over the course of 20 years and an episode that takes place entirely in Scissors head,” Stegina revealed. It’s the freedom of this world that’s so nice and I want you to sit down before you watch every episode and go ‘Where are they possibly going to go next?’”

Their favorite moment happens in an episode where all three characters suffer from a breakup and get bangs. “It’s so dumb, but it’s one of the most memorable things to me from the entire series for some reason,” laughed Lehrman.

And of course, their number one advice on winning the game comes from a psychological study showing that men tend to throw scissors down first. “If you’re playing against the guy, throw paper,” Lehrman said.

Rock Paper Scissors premieres February 12 at 5:30pm ET with new episodes airing weekdays.