— Production is all staggered. Writing starts first, then storyboarding, and then I come in with character design. After that it's animation and post-production. The writers and the creator are the main people that define who characters are going to be. I take care of the design. So, if they're going to be various types of food, like in Apple and Onion, I have to design it that way. Sometimes I would get detailed specifics: George, the creator, is Egyptian, so, he sometimes would have really specific types Egyptian candy in mind that he would give me reference for.

I describe character designing as the costume designer of a show. I'll be the one who's designing their clothes. So, I have to do my research on types of attire or the time frame of the show. Design-wise, I take care of anything character-related.

As a character designer, I do turnarounds of the characters, mouth charts, expression charts, and concepts – different versions of the characters and incidentals (background characters). Often that's the fun part of the show: at the beginning, we just have our main cast, but then we need to fill out the world to populate the streets! A big portion of character design – probably 60-70% of the work – is dedicated to special poses. We get the storyboards with particularly challenging poses pointed out, so that the character designers will draw them out to help the animators make it smoother.

Beyond that, my work is supervising other character designers. So, I do turnarounds, mouth charts, special poses, and then I'm a filter: I give feedback, notes, advice, and guide the quality level of the work coming in and making sure it's all consistent. If you have two or three character designers, they all have their own, unique way of drawing, their own tendencies. It’s a fun challenge; getting consistency amongst the broad spectrum of designers.

— That was always fun to delve into! It's like, oh, I've heard of this food, I know it's from a specific area or country, but what's in it? Why are these ingredients in this type of food? Often that gives cues to the cultural roots: for example, there's this type of rice because people who use it live in such-and-such area. Technically, the show takes place in New York, a melting pot of people and cultures. Apple and Onion definitely seem to have moved to New York from elsewhere. It had very British humour and sensibilities to it.

— Falafel’s design in particular was done before I came on. But I know that sometimes the thought process stayed with Gendi – specifically with Falafel. It might be that it was one of the childhood meals that he liked as a kid? Or how he thinks of Egypt? And maybe, Falafel’s dad is going to be Gendi’s favourite childhood thing that he used to eat growing up? Then the mom is going to be that thing that, he always had when he’d go back home? Falafel is an Egyptian sandwich. So, Falafel’s parents will just be different Egyptian foods: fairly organic in terms of styling because it's so open for falafel. The character of Falafel could be mixed race…or not.

The Onion character is literally an onion, so, he's going to have onion parents. But then you get someone like Pizza, who is literally just a slice of his mom. How would a pizza have kids? Would the pizza have crust kids? Or pepperoni kids? It's just another layer of comedy that you can introduce in a show like 'Apple and onion' and wouldn't be able to do in a show about humans.

— It's becoming an increasingly more prevalent question of how much do the voice actors have to represent the character that they play? I think that in Apple & Onion it varies. For example, Falafel was voiced by an Egyptian actor. Apple is voiced by British Egyptian George Gendi, and Onion: Richard Ayoade, a Nigerian-Swedish Briton. For, Onion we wanted to give him hair that he could style in a way, give him a high top or sky top. George likes those stylistic references. Apple, he has a leaf which became more of an abstract, cool, fun shape for him to have. Whereas Onion has hair that feels like it could be real. So, it was fun to play with different like hairstyles for what would Onion think is like a wicked hairstyle.

Although I actually didn't end up designing any part of Lil Noodle, I did see into the process. I think the director, Calvin Wong, did some of the design work on, and also Pat Kain. I believe Calvin is Chinese and his wife is Korean American. So, he has that Asian cultural frame. Lil Noodle is an Asian Cup of Noodle character, but he's also a rapper... The writing on the cup is Korean, it says ramen, basically – I took Korean in high school. The hair touches on a multicultural amalgamation of this time. Is he African-American, or is he not? Or is he Asian? Or is he mixed? So you get something we have a lot more of nowadays: mixed race couples and kids. My kids are mixed race – they're half Vietnamese, and a lot of their friends are also mixed race. When I was younger, this was more uncommon. So, I feel Lil Noodle represents a more modern character. He isn't just stereotypically one or the other, but he is a mixture of those things.

—My experience as the character designer is that there’s always a balance. Sometimes people are not as aware of how much you need to show specifics in characters to really have the audience relate to them. So, sure, you can over-stereotype in a way that's bad and harmful. But if you just totally wash it clean of any specifics around a certain culture, then you can't connect to it at all. So, it's that dance of all those relatable details: accents, or types of shirt, or whatever it is that you see a commonality in that you relate to.

Sometimes the creator and writers will discuss if the character has too much of a certain trait. I'll have input sometimes with supervising and I'll have a little more input if direction of a character seems inappropriate or not good for the writing. I would say Apple & Onion’s production was pretty good in that sense. I don't feel like we got a lot of pushback in terms of it being over stereotypical. I definitely try and be as thoughtful as I can, but sometimes I feel like we can get a heavier critique than is fair for the context of the content that we make.

Overall, I felt like Gendi’s direction with the show, and his own cultural background and the ability to draw from that are represented in the show. Moreover, he's just a really good voice actor, which was really helpful for the crew and for the process. Our conversations with him have never been particularly challenging or overly prescriptive.

— Despite its novel fusion of food and cultural identity, Apple & Onion came to an end in 2021. How should we remember the show?

—Often shows coming to an end is not necessarily the result of the content’s quality. Certainly, I'm still a believer that the quality content will drive popular series and that will get good numbers. But unfortunately, a lot of the quality shows don't get afforded that. I think Apple & Onion could have caught on more had we been given the chance. But timing-wise, restructuring everything made it difficult: there was a big merger going on at the time. AT&T had bought Time Warner. I think Apple and Onion just didn't do well enough for them to renew it.

I hope the legacy of Apple & Onion is it being a really clever show that has heart; the morality of it that goes beyond just your standard ABC plot lines. It was a really unique show in the way that food represented people and culture and was able to do that in a way that was, fun, relatable and not overly stereotypical. I really enjoyed the musicality of it.

Living the Dream is George Gendi's upcoming show. It’s a British buddy comedy, something between Apple & Onion and The Office. It's more for adults with quirkiness and the funny sensibility that Apple and Onion has.