Funny Little Monsters is a cool show on RTÉjr, but did you know a kid helped to come up with the idea?! And, what started out as a nightmare became something super fun for everyone!!
Stream all the Funny Little Monsters on RTÉ Player now!
Meet Penny
10-year-old Penny Lynch is co-creator of RTÉjr's animation series Funny Little Monsters. She lives in Dublin with her Mam and Dad and her sister Marnie who is 5.
She loves playing with her friends, reading, arts and crafts, baking, chess, and going on family adventures. Here, we find out what it's like creating a TV show and much more...
How did you come up with the idea?
The idea actually started a few years ago when we were on our holidays. I had a nightmare where I was being chased by a big fanged monster with tentacles and a giant beak! Dad suggested we draw a picture of the monster and then we wrote a silly little story about it.
Turned out, the monster was just chasing me to return a hat that I had dropped earlier in my dream! Suddenly, it wasn't so scary anymore. Dad thought that kids describing their monster and bringing them to life on screen was a great idea for a TV show and that’s how it started out.
Did you always like art?
I’ve loved it forever! Art is pretty much everywhere in the world. Architecture is art, painting is art, music is art, drama is art, singing is art. I love all types and I just love art in general. Its really fun to just pick up a pencil and to be able to express yourself on a piece of paper.
Did you like working with your dad? And who was really in charge??
Yes, it was a lot of fun. There are not many people who get to do something like that with their Dad and have that bonding time together. Since we're co-creators, both of us were in charge!
What was the best part of making the show?
It was so good to see how amazing other people are and how funny some of the monsters were. And seeing the finished episodes for the first time was really exciting.
What is an average day for a young TV Exec?
There were lots of meetings at my Dad’s computer! I would get to see all the designs, hear the music and see the episodes before anyone else! We had long chats coming up with the names of many of the monsters and some of the silly words in the scripts which was really funny. I helped out at voiceover recordings too which was a great chance to meet some of the kids who were selected to be on the show.
My favourite thing was helping to pick the Funny Little Monsters from all the brilliant submissions. There were so many super monsters to choose from. At different stages, a few of us (from the production team) including myself made shortlists of some of our favourites.
When we compared them, there were lots of common monsters that we all picked. We would then have a chat about the other ones and it was a really cool part of making the show. It was kinda sad we had to leave so many brilliant monsters out because we could only make 26.
Making Funny Little Monsters has been a lot of fun and now I'm really excited for everyone to see it on TV. I hope that will be the best bit!
