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TV/Streaming Modernish Makeovers: Uncle Bobby (Cedric the Entertainer) swaps his dated disco look for equally dated Hammer pants in the new series' character redesign.
Acclaimed composer, songwriter and producer Kurt Farquhar, who wrote and composed the iconic theme song for The Proud Family, also returns as series songwriter and composer for Louder and Prouder. The new theme song, which preserves the lyrics and melody of the original, is performed by rising R&B star Joyce Wrice. “You can’t mention our show without mentioning music,” says Smith. “Solange and Destiny’s Child did a fantastic job of really laying out the original theme song, so we wanted to hand over that mantle to someone else to realize the full potential of what they laid out for today.” The process for selecting songs begins in the writer’s room, as Farquhar relates. “It starts between the young writers and the old writers,” he says, describing how they would go back and forth from current needle drops like Lizzo to redoing songs by older artists like Shuggie Otis and The Brothers Johnson.
That’s My Jam! ‘We strive to be as authentic as possible as it relates to being Black in America, and all its shades, if you will. So no one character has to carry the weight of an entire race of people.’ — Exec producer Ralph Farquhar
“When Ralph and I sat down and talked about what we wanted to do moving forward, one of the things we thought was important was to sort of age the characters up,” Smith recounts. “They still look the same in essence, but we aged the characters up, and visually take the show with it.” Taking Penny Proud and her friends on a sometimes emotional journey of discovery in Louder and Prouder, the EPs knew the visuals “had to ride with that,” as Smith puts it. “There’s a level of dimension that we’ve added to the visuals to make sure they can help carry the weight of these stories,” he says.
“We knew that there was a certain level of gravity that we were going to add to the show. We get very emotional at times,” Smith continues, noting that Penny and her friends experience several new firsts, many of them fraught. “So there’s a certain cinematic touch we give to these emotional scenes that we probably did not do the first time around. But we made sure that we really leaned into those opportunities to make sure that they’re as believable and as touching as they can possibly be. And then, when we go off the chains and get very wacky in certain episodes, we really bring that cinematic touch to that as well.”
Looking back on The Proud Family’s legacy, Farquhar says, “I don’t think we were quite aware how important this show was to young Black kids at the time, people of color in general. In the ensuing years, it’s just come to us over and over where people say, ‘Oh my gosh, I really love this episode, it had Muslims in it,’ or ‘Oh, I loved the first time I saw myself in a cartoon.’ It became clear to us that the show for whatever reason was very, very, very important to people. And so we know we have a huge responsibility to our audience. There are high expectations.” Beyond crafting a hit show, the EPs have equally high expectations for themselves. “Hopefully this show will resonate, not only with the audience that has now grown and has children that are 12 and 14, but also with the young kids today. And that they will see themselves, that they will hear themselves reflected in what we’re doing,” says Farquhar. “So our hope is that this show turns out to be as important to a new generation as it was back in 2001 when we first premiered. Normally, you wish you have ratings and you make money. But our hope is to really provide a template for a new generation, what it means to be Black in America, and one that they can watch over and over again, enjoy and laugh about. Hopefully, 20 years from now, someone will say, ‘Hey, I remember Proud Family back in 2022. That was my jam.’” ◆ The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder premieres on Disney+ on February 25.
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march 22
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