Mittens & Pants makes live-action TV magic with real animals
Phil McCordic faced a steep learning curve in adapting to the unpredictable nature of filming live animals. But his show is now airing in 57 countries, spurring viral social media posts, and has inspired a Roblox game.
In 2006 director, producer and kids’ TV host Phil McCordic was working on a show called Tumbletown Tales, which featured real hamsters and rodents, when he came up with the idea for his preschool TV show Mittens & Pants. “Ever since then I had always been thinking to myself, ‘It'd be really fun to do that show with characters in a scale model world and real puppies and kittens,’” says McCordic.
He conceptualized the show in 2012 and began shopping it around to production companies. It would feature a real-life white kitten, named Mittens, and her best friend, Pants, a labradoodle puppy, who go on adventures in their town, Kibble Corners.
“Almost universally, the response was, ‘Yeah, but how are you going to make it,’” McCordic recalls.
He was turned down by more than half a dozen production companies before he started his own, Windy Isle Entertainment, in 2021. He created the company with his wife, film producer Shereen Ali, who would become Windy Isle’s vice president and help McCordic bring Mittens & Pants from concept to show.
There are now three seasons of Mittens & Pants available on CBC Gem.
Learning to work with animals
Knowing that his talent — a furry crew of young puppies, kittens, bunnies, ducklings and guinea pigs — wouldn’t respond on command, McCordic opted to create an overall plot, like a rabbit’s truck of carrots overturns, then script and voice the footage after it was shot.
But he faced a steep learning curve. “It took me a full eight-hour day in edits just to get a minute's worth of a five-minute video,” McCordic recalls. “I was completely terrified that I had made a horrible mistake, that there was no way to get a show out of their completely random behaviour.”
McCordic had a lightbulb moment two weeks into production — split-screen filming. He’d set up a scene with the puppy on the left side and the kitten on the right side, for example, then cut and match separate footage of the animals appropriately. “They don't have to coordinate their movements, which they rarely ever do,” explains McCordic.
The crew works with an animal wrangler and there is always a representative from Movie Animals Protected to monitor the animals on set.
Footage first, script second
As McCordic got his footing he developed a strategy of writing a “guide script,” then working with producers to capture film around the general plot, leaving room for error and spontaneity. He says things go “off the rails” about 70 percent of the time.
Then editors go through the footage and find the best moments for a rough cut of a seven-minute episode. “I carefully scrutinize all the little bits of fun and rewrite the scene to make sure I'm including as many of those little moments,” McCordic says. “It's super freeing because I can go anywhere with the script.”
McCordic voices temporary lines for the show, then actors, including Mia SwamiNathan as Mittens and Athan Giazitzidis as Pants, voice the final scenes.
The show captures issues parents can feel positive about — its tagline is “Different is Good.”
Viewers learn that Pants was adopted by his bunny mom and knows he’s not quite like his rabbit family. There are surprisingly funny, sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek moments that make the show enjoyable for adults and parents too.
Thanks to McCordic’s varied background as an actor, writer and producer he’s ideally positioned as showrunner for Mittens & Pants. “The show that I've created works well off my skill set,” he says. “It's probably cause and effect there, that the skill set that I was able to bring to the table is what we’re using to make the show.”
A show with international, and consumer product, appeal
Early in the show’s development, McCordic partnered with Thunderbird Entertainment to sell the series to various markets. Richard Goldsmith is Thunderbird’s president of global distribution and consumer products. “I knew that the show checked all the boxes to be a successful television series,” he says.
Goldsmith says the settings and storylines are familiar to preschoolers, and the bright colour palette is an asset. So is the fact that Mittens and Pants are the same age as their audience.
The show is airing in 57 countries, including the U.S., Australia, China, Brazil, Denmark, Norway and the UAE, many of which redub episodes into their own language or regional accent. Part of the reason the show translates so well is that re-dubbers don’t have to worry about “lip flap,” or coordinating the dubbed track to match characters’ lip movements.
Before McCordic locked in his set designs, Goldsmith connected him with a toy consultant who offered advice about tweaking elements like building and vehicle design. “We wanted to make sure that everything in the show translated to consumer products because that's where most of the revenue is made,” Goldsmith explains. While the show hasn’t produced any products yet, Goldsmith plans to once a critical audience has been achieved.
Socials capture audiences young and old
One way Mittens & Pants is growing its audience is through its social media channels. Thunderbird maintains the show’s YouTube channel but David Elmaleh, Windy Isle’s vice president of social and audience development, helms Mittens & Pants’ Instagram and TikTok accounts. Since he joined the company in July 2024, after season two of Mittens & Pants, he’s grown its Instagram account from 700 to 204,000 followers while TikTok has grown from 9,000 to 55,000 followers.
Elmaleh learned that Gen Z (those now in their teens to late 20s) was fuelling much of the show’s social growth. “We see on Instagram, specifically, that we are a comfort show for the Gen Z audience,” Elmaleh explains. “They see the show as an escape from their day-to-day.”
Now that Mittens & Pants has a solid following he hopes that, thanks to Instagram and TikTok algorithms, more parents will stumble upon their accounts, translating to more preschool viewers. “Every follower is valuable,” says Elmaleh. “It will continue to drive discoverability.”
Mittens & Pants has also launched a game on Roblox — inspired by one of its most popular characters, a carrot-farming rabbit named Monsieur LaFleur — which further promotes awareness of the show.
Social media analytics also offer insights that inform McCordic about what resonates with audiences. For example, a show on “kitten class” — when Pants goes to class with three other kittens — was a hit on the internet, so McCordic brought back the scenario in the third season.
“We don’t exactly know why they liked it, but we wrote another kitten-class episode and it’s delightful and fun,” McCordic explains. “It truly is folly. We make the best, most fun content we can, cross our fingers and hope that it works. If someone has a better solution or a better way to target it than that, please call me!”
