Butler and Hope Share Career Stories from Little Lunch, The Inbestigators

Gristmill’s Robyn Butler and Wayne Hope are known for their distinctive brand of narrative comedy. In a live-streamed event hosted by the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) on August 11, the Australian producers explained their process of creating adult series such as Upper Middle Bogan, The Librarians and Very Small Business and detailed their successful ventures in children’s, including Little Lunch and The Inbestigators.

To set the scene, MC Denise Eriksen, Co-Founder of Media Mentors Australia rolls a clip Gristmill created by splicing the 22 language versions of The Inbestigators currently streaming in 187 countries on Netflix.

Afterwards, the producers explain that their desire to create The Inbestigators stemmed from a screening of the Little Lunch specials (The Nightmare Before Graduation and The Halloween Horror Story) at Parliament House.

Robyn: “This is a fun story. We had made Little Lunch, which was a departure from anything we had ever done. It was born out of the fact our friends Danny Katz and Mitch Vane (the writer and illustrator of the [Little Lunch] books) had had that story and we decided to make it into a mockumentary. It was more successful than we could have imagined.

We made two specials for Little Lunch and had a parliamentary screening for them, which the ACTF organised. Because the episodes had already gone to air, they were very popular. Politicians and people who worked at Parliament House had brought their kids and we had this screening that was full of people. We had some of the cast there. The specials were lovely, and everybody was just delighted. Afterwards, it felt incredible. The Minister, Heads of Television, and everybody [at the screening] were wiping away tears afterwards. It was one of those really beautiful nights.

[The screening] happened to be the night before the US presidential election. I was filled with [thoughts like] “Oh my god, we’re in the centre of democracy and tomorrow we’re going to have the first female president. It’s going to be so incredible.” After we flew back home to Melbourne, I was going to sit with my daughters and watch it. Then the night unfolded, and it was just so catastrophic.

I then thought about how much it matters that we have diversity and gender equity. I thought, “you know what? We’re all preaching to the choir”. You need to start from the ground up, teaching respect and kindness and fairness when people are little. So, I said to Wayne: “We’re doing another one. We’re doing another kids’ show.”

I love detective stuff like Encyclopedia Brown. I thought we could do something similar. We went to the ACTF very early on who were incredible partners and backers of us. We said: “what about this one?” and they went “yeah, great!”.

Wayne: It turns out it was the biggest production we had ever undertaken. It was 40 episodes, because we did two seasons at once. What we had suffered with Little Lunch was that [the cast] grow up so fast that you can’t make another series. So, we committed to [the 40 episodes], and wow! It was an experience.

The duo also shares insights into how they pitch their children’s shows to the ABC and Netflix and what was required to prepare The Inbestigators for international broadcast.

The full video, “Talks @ AFTRS with Robyn Butler & Wayne Hope” can be streamed here.