I knew that Weird Girl was going to be kind of amazing. The secret truth of Weird Girl is that I put her in there originally because I needed some way to set the boys' names.

Frankenweenie is also about mortality, but at a very different stage. It's losing a parent versus losing a dog. I don't run away from the tears of that, which I think is what makes it feel universal.

Now, it's common knowledge that most towns of a certain size have a witch, if only to eat misbehaving children and the occasional puppy who wanders into her yard.

I convinced Tim to add one song, and then we added five. We changed a lot of things while we were shooting, which you should never do in stop-motion animation. With this, it was a much smoother ship, so I wasn't getting sent the scratch reels of things.

Keeping the cat front-and-center was definitely a smart choice, from Tim and the animation department. Mr. Whiskers got referred to more than we actually saw him on stage. Seeing him on screen, you just love him.

I loved The Sarah Connor Chronicles that Josh did, and I loved that it was a family drama with a huge, different element. And this is also a family drama with a huge, very different element. I think he'll kill it. It will be great.

You're looking, moment by moment and scene by scene, how you can tell the most interesting story. So, we had this great short and we knew that we had a story about a boy and his dog. Because we had that pure emotional core, we could go on crazy tangents and always come back to Victor and Sparky. When I wrote in stuff like Weird Girl and the cat poop, Dutch Day and the windmill, it felt like it was part of Tim's universe.