The musician and songwriter shares the collaborative processes and joys of composing for the new season of DreamWorks’ hit hybrid live-action/animated preschool series about a cat-loving young girl who gets swept into various adventures within her dollhouse; new episodes debut August 5 on Netflix.
From motion pictures like Purple Violets and Southern Belles to Mercedes and M&Ms commercials, New York-based composer PT Walkley has been around the block and back again when it comes to music composition. But out of all his projects, the one that’s been capturing most of his attention and affection is working on the “Quirky Cat Bop,” as he puts it, on DreamWorks’ musical preschool animated series Gabby’s Dollhouse, which debuts Season 10 today, August 5, on Netflix.
The series, created by Traci Paige Johnson (Blue’s Clues, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood) and Jennifer Twomey (Blue’s Clues, Team Umizoomi), continues to capture the hearts of young viewers with its mix of live-action and animated adventures. Gabby’s Dollhouse, which centers around a cat-loving young girl who is frequently and fantastically swept away to adventures inside her bedroom dollhouse, has consistently ranked among Netflix’s top streaming originals, becoming a staple in preschool entertainment and inspiring an award-winning toy line, books, home apparel, and more. In 2023, Gabby’s Dollhouse was the sixth-most-viewed streaming original series, according to Nielsen, and has spent seven weeks in Netflix’s Global English TV Top 10 list. The show’s popularity has made it a top three preschool brand in the U.S., supported by its engaging app and a growing YouTube channel.
The new season of Gabby’s Dollhouse features six 22-minute episodes filled with robots, kitty fish pirates and a new party room in honor of Gabby’s birthday. Returning cast members include Laila Lockhart Kraner as Gabby, Logan Bailey as Pandy Paws, Tara Strong as Kitty Fairy and Mama Box, Donovan Patton as CatRat, Juliet Donenfeld as Cakey, Maggie Lowe as Baby Box, Secunda Wood as MerCat, Sainty Nelsen as Pillow Cat, Eduardo Franco as DJ Catnip, and Carla Tassara as Carlita. Darren Criss is also joining the Gabby Cat cast, lending his voice to the newest dollhouse member, “Marty the Party Cat.”
Check out the trailer:
In addition to glittery surprise boxes, mermaid kingdoms, Christmas cruise ships and fairy garden magic, one of the fan-favorite aspects of Gabby’s Dollhouse is its undeniably catchy tunes, crafted by Walkley, who had a sizable footprint in the world of Kids' TV while also collaborating with big names like Sean Lennon, Jordin Sparks, David Campbell and more. Walkley has joined forces with over 30 artists to launch Bathing Suit Music, which serves as both a licensing platform and a collective of original composers, and has performed live at Madison Square Garden, The Hammerstein Ballroom and The Kennedy Center. But he feels just as at home coming up with phonics for a kids' cartoon using PVC pipes and glowing hula-hoops as inspiration.
For Walkley, composing for kids’ animation has just as much to offer one's passion pool as composing for blockbuster features and performing at a top-tier music festival alongside biggies in the industry. Though kids’ TV is seen by some to be more lowbrow and comprised of subpar jingles, Walkley is hoping to change that way of thinking and show audiences, through Gabby’s Dollhouse, that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.
Joining Walkley in singing Gabby’s Dollhouse music praises is Republic Records: Kids & Family and DreamWorks Animation, who have announced a partnership to release new original music from the beloved popular mixed media children’s series. Coinciding with today’s premiere, a brand-new single entitled “Better Together” just landed at all streaming platforms.
Listen to “Better Together” here.
We got the chance to talk with Walkley about how he came to be part of Gabby’s Dollhouse’s team, the challenges of creating catchy kids' music that also appeals to adults, and the party that’s in store for fans in Season 10.
Victoria Davis: How did you connect with the Gabby’s Dollhouse Team? What drew you to the opportunity to work on the show?
PT Walkley: I’ve known Jen [Twomey] and Traci [Johnson] for ages and getting to work with them is one of my life’s greatest joys. Jen and I first worked together when I did the music for the 2010 series Team Umizoomi. Roughly nine years later, Traci and I then worked together on Blue’s Clues & You. They co-created Gabby’s, asked if I’d throw my Gabby-hat in the ring, and the rest is history!
VD: You’ve worked on a number of Kids’ TV shows before, and I’m sure every composition project is unique. But what made working on Gabby’s Dollhouse particularly special and different?
PTW: Well, for one thing, I’d never worked this much in the radio pop space. It’s still got the hand-drawn, whimsy-quirk thing I tend to gravitate toward, but the direction was to infuse a healthy dose of pop. I’m so glad I did, because that direction tapped a major song artery in me, and the ideas just keep flowing. The newfangled genre meld even earned the name “Quirky Cat Bop.”
VD: Were there any challenges when it came to scoring for this show that set the process apart?
PTW: The show is full of different characters, so job one was to help define them through song. That was the hardest part, to really capture what each character was about, and to give each a stand-alone, takeaway theme. It turned out to be the perfect approach, as the themes carry on through the underscoring, and each character has a unique sonic identity. I’d never done that before either, but it’s definitely the move from now on.
VD: I know one of the show’s goals has always been to keep the music fresh and exciting for the whole family and I imagine composing catchy songs that utilize repetitive learning and fresh beats that even adults will appreciate is no easy task. Did you find that to be the case?
PTW: I’ve written songs and underscore for every kind of project there is, and I’ve been drawing from the same well the whole time. I just let the project inspire me, and trust that I have whatever that thing is that brews up tunes and lyrics that resonate on a universal level. You can always dress it up a little differently depending on the project, but a good song is a good song at its core and can be arranged to fit the project.
VD: Did your time collaborating with big-time musicians in the industry help when it came to making catchy music for a show like Gabby’s Dollhouse? I have a daughter who loves this show and even her grandfather (who is an avid AC/DC fan) likes the music.
PTW: Man, I just love making music, and I dig every kind too, as long as it’s a good specimen of its genre. I’m fortunate to have ideas coming in all the time, wherever it is they come from. I am even more fortunate to have had consistent outlets for those ideas over the years. I used to do a lot of commercial music, and that was like a crash course in learning to play every genre and was a terrific training ground for expanding musical chops and delivering on impossible deadlines.
I had a band and recorded all different styles of songs. One silver lining of never getting a record deal is that you don’t have a label telling you what to sound like! I’ve written for movies, TV shows, and yes worked with some biggies like Megan Trainer, Sean Lennon, H.E.R., played shows with Weezer, Coldplay, The Black Keys and more. I’m sure all those experiences along the way have collaged together and helped shape the songs I write now, acting as different ingredients in the Gabby Cat-alog, if you will. I’m so glad this batch is resonating with such a wide range of people!
VD: Tell me about Season 10’s music. What were the musical goals? What are viewers in store for with the new sounds this season?
PTW: The big song coming out this season is “Marty Party,” which I think captures his gleeful personality perfectly! The goals are always to take what we’ve been doing and dig in even deeper- bigger beats, hookier hooks, meowier meows, keep it pawsome… I hope you’re ready!
VD: All the Gabby cats have their own theme song and there’s a new character on the scene in the new season, Marty the Party Cat. How did you go about composing his theme song? What are some of the key instrumentations used in his music?
PTW: Within 10 seconds of hearing the new character’s name, I had the hook “We’re havin' a Marty Party” in my head. It was sort of in a pop disco vibe, so I built it out from there. A lot of times that will happen, where Jen and Traci give me a character name, or a character trait and it quickly turns into a lyric or melody. I live in a beach town, and they came to visit once when there was live music on the beach. Kids were rocking these light-up, glow-in-the-dark hula-hoops that I think instantly became a source of inspiration for all of us.
As far as key instrumentation goes… there’s a line in the new season that goes, “Get a party hoop, do that loop de loop” in the song, and I use a mouth sound to simulate a hoop swinging around. That’s the only way I could get the right sound I was hearing in my head. Lots of mouth sounds and beatboxing in these jams.
VD: Any Gabby’s Dollhouse compositions you are personally most excited about sharing with the world?
PTW: “Better Together” is a doozy. Friendship songs are always fun to write, and I think you’re gonna love it!
VD: Outside of your own vocals for the hula-hoops, were there any instruments or musical tools used this season that are unique from previous seasons? Any that you rarely get to use in general?
PTW: Actually, yes! Over the years, I can’t believe how many times I’ve searched for the perfect “pneumatic tube” sound. This season, I found it. I was assembling a batting cage for my son, and I pulled two pieces of PVC pipes apart and, eureka! The perfect “thhhoooomb” sound. I sampled it and have been putting it to use as a sort of marimba/pluck sound lately.
VD: Kids' TV music gets a lot of grief in some circles. What do you enjoy the most about working on Kids' TV projects?
PTW: Let’s be honest. There’s terrific and terrible music across every type of project and in every genre. It’s not the project or the genre that makes a song good or bad. Music can be important and personal to people and, oftentimes, people wear their musical tastes on their sleeves as a defining characteristic of their own persona, as if to say, “I’m a hipster indie rocker,” or “I’m a jazz guy,” or a “country or hip-hop guy” and so on. Some think, “I can’t be liking a mainstream pop song or something that came from a kids' TV show because it wouldn’t be consistent with this version of myself that I’m putting out there.” It’s pre-emptively shutting doors to joy they don’t realize they’re missing.
Like with everything else, it helps to keep an open mind, let a song hit you on a gut level and see if it moves you or not. And to those haters, I’d say this: Be careful listening to these Gabby tunes. They’ll get you!
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
