Meeting the creator of the “My Little Fluffy” reboot
An interview with Larry Fortuna, the creator of the hit series “My Little Fluffy - New Fluffs on the Block”
The world’s biggest and most celebrated entertainment heavyweights descended upon the sun soaked, white halls of the Southern California Convention Center late last week for the annual Showbiz-Shindig.
Our Fluffy Club correspondent, Josie Davis was there and caught up with Larry Fortuna, best known for his role in the creation of the mega popular TV series “My Little Fluffy - New Fluffs on the Block” (MLF - NFotB).
Story by Fluffy Club correspondent, Josie Davis
It was way past my bedtime.
I had already tucked in my unicorn fluffy Isabel many hours ago but I could not switch off the TV.
I was committed to completing my twice-yearly rewatch of the entire “My Little Fluffy - New Fluffs on the Block” series.
All 10 seasons.
I was THAT committed (addicted).
As the dreamy visage of Ricky Sanchez (sigh…) and his fluffy stallion Point Ace flickered across the screen in front of me, my phone buzzed with a long Slapchat message from our Fluffy Club captain Amy Hastings.
For the heathens out there who don’t know who Larry Fortuna is, he is the My Little Fluffy equivalent of Nolan to the Batman Franchise.
Then again, if you have never heard of Larry Fortuna, why would you be even interested in reading this article about “My Little Fluffy” in the first place??
Anyway, you can imagine how panicked I was leading up to such an important interview. I wrote a thousand questions, added another bunch suggested by my friends at the fluffy club, then subsequently deleted them all because we were are all a bunch of fanboys and fangirls asking dumb questions.
On the eve of the interview, seeing that I was hopelessly flustered, our club captain Amy pulled me aside and gave me this sage advice:
“Just let the guy speak. Don’t force it, just go with the flow.”
The next day…
The flow led me to the backstage area of the Showbiz-Shindig. Clutching a bunch of handwritten notes and with my press pass wrapped up in a lanyard, I spotted the figure of a man in his late thirties, eyes ringed with a tinge of tiredness but exuding a gentleness.
The handler beside him was whispering instructions into his ears as he pointed towards my direction. The man approached me and offered his hand.
“Josie Davis? I’m Larry Fortuna.”
Like a noob I flashed him my press pass instead of taking his handshake.
The man laughed casually as I put away my pass and shook his hand. It was a confident and corporate handshake, something unexpected from an artist but perhaps symbolic of the corporate masters he had to please in his tenure with the My Little Fluffy franchise.
With introductions dispensed with, we both sat down at a quieter corner of the backstage area.
I gave him my usual pre-interview spiel, introduced myself and the Fluffy Pony Club I was interviewing for and gave him the courtesy of knowing that I would be recording the interview:
Larry: No worries, record away! I’m just glad to be finally seated. I’ve been on my feet all day.
(Larry takes a bottle of water from the cooler and starts drinking)
Josie: Firstly, thank you again for taking the time to talk to the Fluffy Pony Club. I know you’ve had a long day and I can imagine you are all questioned out so I really appreciate your time.
Larry: It’s my pleasure. You know, it hasn’t been that busy for me this time round. I think people have forgotten about me (he laughs). But seriously, being forgotten and flying under the radar has given me time to enjoy this fan convention and check out what everyone else has been up to.
Josie: How can they forget you? You are THE Larry Fortuna who revitalized the My Little Fluffy franchise!
Larry: Well…I’m actually a little surprised that I even got an invite back to the Showbiz-Shindig this year.
I am grateful for it though, meeting the fans of the show is always a privilege and an honor.
Josie: How were the My Little Fluffy fans this year?
(Larry pauses in deep thought)
Larry: Enthused. (he laughs)
As always I love meeting my fluffy fans who all call me “nice fwuffy writer mistah!” (he laughs).
The human fans were also a treat. The cosplayers especially. Wow, they put some real effort into their costumes!
The real interesting part was the Q&A session. It got a little bit, shall we say…spicy. Were you there for it?
Josie: Sadly no, I was too preoccupied preparing my questions for this interview…
Larry: Ah. Too bad, you missed a few doozies about the fluffy ships (relationships) the fans were insistent on…
Josie: So sad I missed it!
But now I have a chance to ask you all those burning questions that the Fluffy Club is dying to know.
Larry: Ask away!
Josie: It’s been a number of years since you left and stopped writing for the show, will you ever come back to My Little Fluffy?
(Larry chuckles. I can see in his face that he has been asked this a thousand times.)
Larry: In this business we never say never, but the correct answer is: no one really ever leaves the My Little Fluffy franchise in the first place.
Josie: Evasive.
Larry: That’s the business we are in. I’ll expand on that.
For a while I had a new concept to reboot the MLF (My Little Fluffy) franchise with new characters and stories.
Hasbio offered to consider my proposal if I was willing to develop a comprehensive pitch bible for the ideas I had.
So I spent 3 months non-stop writing character backgrounds, doing concept art 24x7, 7 days a week.
When you sink that much heart and soul into something…you never really let it go again.
Josie: Wow, what was it like during that time? When you were still trying to sell the idea to Hasbio? It’s crazy to think that your whole idea might have never taken off in the first place!
Larry: Exactly! It wasn’t a shoo-in either, people forget that.
Back then, the whole MLF thing was really looked at negatively. Perhaps negative is the wrong word, but it was pigeon-holed. MLF was a “one trick pony”.
(Larry laughs at his own joke. His smile is infectious and I laugh as well.)
MLF already had a long history before I came along.
All the toys and merchandise that went along with all the TV shows and movies. But no one took it seriously, they saw it as some sort of side-show. Something niche and a bit quirky.
You know what the saddest thing was?
(Larry’s face turns serious and he leans forward.)
The people that watched the old MLF shows and bought the toys, they didn’t want it to change.
They were happy with the stories written by Hasbio. The stale old stories, the continual flogging of a dead horse.
Josie: I watched those old shows! I loved it as a kid.
Larry: Yeah me too! But sometimes when you get comfortable with something, you don’t know how much better things can get.
(At his mention of the old MLF shows, I couldn’t resist any longer and I took out my first generation My Little Fluffy figurine of “Morning Flash”. Morning Flash was the Alicorn Fluffy Princess who was my favorite MLF character as a kid. Larry takes the figurine and admires it.)
Larry: You know, Morning Flash was the inspiration for my design of Evie (aka Eventide Radiance, the protagonist of Larry’s MLF reboot).
Josie: (A little too excitedly…) I can see that! Your Evie totally looks like Morning Flash!
Larry: Yeah, but only in looks and visual design.
The original Hasbio character for Morning Flash was so cookie cutter it could fill a bakery for days. It was so BORING!
Her storylines re-tread the same tired old tropes over and over every episode!
The constant spaghetti parties, the same old incidents at the swimming pool.
But the MLF fans at the time loved it! Which is totally crazy considering how interesting the lives of really fluffy ponies are.
Why can’t we tell those stories instead? Stories with nuance and with relatable fluffy characters instead of pre-packaged stand-ins that I couldn’t tell apart from each other?
(At this point I could sense his passion overtaking him but I recalled the advice from Amy earlier to “let the guy speak”)
Larry: So just some background. Before I even approached Hasbio about my MLF concept, I had spent a year working on Carmen’s (Carmen McMillan is Larry’s wife who is also in the entertainment industry) animated show, the “Strong Selling Salesmen”.
From working on her show, I got real confident with crafting stories and art.
Around the same time, Carmen and I bought our first house. Packing the bits and pieces from our old home, we rediscovered the old MLF toys that we played with when we were kids.
One day, I turned to Carmen and said. “Listen Carmen, we both loved the old MLF stories (and owned the toys), and we both love our pet fluffy Burrito, why don’t we come up with a new MLF concept that appeals to both fluffy owners and their fluffies?”
Josie: So Carmen was instrumental in coming up with your concept?
Larry: No, she shot it down and said Hasbio would never buy into a concept that presented some risk.
(I chuckled)
Honestly, I agreed with her.
MLF at the time was niche but it was successful in its own limited way. Why would Hasbio bother? I knew they would only sign onto my ideas if they could smell the scent of real money. But I knew Hasbio would not take the chance unless I convinced them I had it all thought out.
Josie: So how did you get involved with Hasbio?
Larry: I was in the right place at the right time ultimately.
The Hasbio execs were in the middle of reviewing their intellectual properties. They were reaching a saturation point with their FluffyMart market penetration and associated fluffy products.
Hasbio’s target market were people (mainly girls) that loved fluffies as pets.
Those people were already spending thousands of dollars on princess beds and premium spaghetti kibble. The Hasbio MLF shows were not materially increasing fluffy ownership. The Hasbio shareholders demanded more mileage from their franchises.
But there were still so many people and families out there, especially in the cities that never considered having a fluffy pony as a pet.
They either didn’t think much of fluffies or they didn’t realize the richness of relationship that one could have with a fluffy friend.
I knew that, but the Hasbio suits didn’t.
Josie: So you were ahead of the time? You could see things that Hasbio didn’t?
Larry: Not really. If you ask Carmen she would say I was just lucky.
There was already so much potential in the MLF franchise. Anyone could have come up with much better characters and stories than I have.
It really came back to the hidden potential in the MLF franchise. There were flashes of brilliance in the old shows, really cool stories about meaningful relationships and imaginative adventures.
Josie: Was this around the time you approached Genecco with your MLF knock-off series.
(Larry went silent and I could sense an unease…I was afraid I had crossed a line. He looked away briefly as if looking for his handler.)
Larry: Yeah, that Genecco business. I don’t really like to talk about it.
Josie: Point taken. Apologies Mr. Fortuna, I didn’t mean to.
Larry: It’s quite alright. It’s just that it was a really difficult time for me professionally, and with my association with Hasbio these days, I won’t want to dwell on dealings I have with competitors in the past.
Josie: Understandable. So tell me more about your proposal to Hasbio.
(He perks up a little after taking a sip from his water bottle.)
Larry: I actually met with a Hassenfeld when I made my first proposal to Hasbio.
Bonnie Hassenfeld to be precise. Do you know her?
Josie: Can’t say that I do.
Larry: She was the Hassenfeld family member in charge of the media entertainment side of Hasbio.
A very Intelligent woman, the kind that leaves you thinking you can only begin to scratch the surface of what goes on inside her head.
The funny thing was, I was expecting her to be “a suit” but she knew all the Generation 1, 2 and 3 MLF characters and their stories back to front. I mean her title says “executive” but I suspect there is more to her than meets the eye.
What it meant was is that I couldn’t bullshit her.
She shot down my proposal to include story lines where Princess Fluffies were not princesses through bloodlines. Bonnie cited the deep Princess lore that was part of the Gen 1 origin stories.
Real nerdy stuff, stuff that even I didn’t know about.
Josie: I know about the Gen 1 Princess bloodlines!
Haven’t you seen Gen 1, Season 3, Episode 23?
That’s the episode where Morning Flash discovers that her mother was a Princess when she found that picture of her mother hidden behind the silver tea cups?
(Larry stared blankly at me.)
Larry: Can’t say I have, but you can see the mountain that was before me.
By the end of the meeting with Bonnie Hassenfeld, I’m pretty sure she hated me and thought I was tearing up her MLF legacy.
I didn’t hear back from Hasbio for a year.
During that time, that awful MLF movie came out, “My Little Fluffy - Fluffy Fair”.
Josie: I loved that movie!
The art was so much better than the TV series and they consolidated the characters by focussing on the “Fab Five Fluffs”.
Larry: Stylistically and storywise, I concede it was an improvement over the series that came before it. But there was nothing new in the stories. It was all smoke and mirrors to mask the same hackneyed drivel that was Gen 3 MLF.
Josie: For someone that claims to love MLF and is so instrumental in its revival, I feel a strong sense of resentment towards the original material.
Larry: It’s because I love it so much that I feel such passion. So imagine my surprise when I got a call from Bonnie Hassenfeld a year later asking me to come up with a pitch bible which they would consider if it was compelling enough.
Josie: Wow. That must be like a dream come true.
Larry: Quite the opposite.
I was dreading the opportunity. At the time I was not convinced that the MLF franchise could ever amount to anything. I was having a really bad relationship with the whole MLF thing at the time.
This whole new MLF concept I had, of new stories and characters that didn’t just follow the same storyline as before, I didn’t want it compromised for the sake of having an opportunity to work with Habio on MLF.
I knew our end goals were different, they wanted to sell more princess beds and kibble, I wanted to tell good fluffy stories.
Stories where fluffies did things, with or without their owners.
Stories where fluffies made sense of their world and could overcome dark beginnings and difficult circumstances without being told they were born too stupid to ever know better.
That sounds like a trivial goal nowadays for fluffy stories, but that was only because my MLF series has been made and the audience connected with it, but can you imagine how insurmountable a goal it seemed like at the time?
Josie: Yeah I can imagine.
Getting that Hasbio offer must have filled you with ambivalence…
Did you accept their offer there and then? Or did you refuse at first, given your trepidations?
Larry: I wanted to reject them outright because I was still a little bitter about that meeting with Bonnie.
Ultimately I accepted the offer.
Firstly, I knew that I could refine my concept with a bit more time and hopefully prove to them the merits of my concept.
Secondly, no one says “no” to Bonnie fucking Hassenfeld!
(I had a million more questions about the production of his MLF pitch bible and the events leading to the first season of his MLF series. A little weary from constant talking, Larry called for a quick bathroom break so I took the time to sort out my interview notes in preparation for the next part…)
~ End of Part 1 ~