Navigating Non-Political Storytelling in a Woke Media Era

Jonny Vance is a Writer/Director and Co-Founder at Tuttle Twins Show, a highly popular show that teaches kids principles of freedom and economics. This interview was edited for clarity.

Ari: You're working on the fourth season of the Tuttle Twins. What do you think sparked the revolution you’re working on, and why is it seeing so much success?

Jonny: It all started with a spark from Connor [Boyack]. He was looking for books to teach his kids principles of freedom. He couldn’t find any, so he wrote his own book. He called it Tuttle Twins and his first book featured Frederic Bastiat and his classic book The Law. Connor’s kids loved the first book. He solved his own problem and then hundreds of other parents asked for it too! That was the spark.

Daniel [Harmon] and I were making ads at Harmon Brothers ad agency. We approached Connor and said, "Hey, can we take these books and adapt them into a TV show?" He gave the greenlight and we adapted Tuttle Twins into a cartoon about a grandma who takes her grandkids on freedom-filled adventures in her time traveling wheelchair. We didn’t even know if there would be demand for this kind of show. But we thought, let’s test the waters and see if people will crowdfund it.

Turns out, there was a huge hunger for alternative education from parents. When we launched our crowdfunding campaign, we ended up breaking the record for number one crowdfunded kids’ show of all time, even beating a show from Netflix! It was amazing to see all the demand from parents.

Ari: I’ll admit I have a really thick book by Thomas Sowell on economics. I’ve never even opened it. I think I need to get some economics books from you guys and read those.

Jonny: Or better yet, we'll put it into a 20-minute cartoon you can watch.

Ari: You said you were working on the ad agency side before. You’ve clearly always been a creative type. Was this something you envisioned doing?

Jonny: No, not at all. We’re a bunch of freedom guys at Harmon Brothers, and we wanted to get into original content. Our ads were entertaining, and we wanted to create TV shows one day, but Tuttle Twins wasn’t on our radar.

But my co-founder, Daniel asked himself “If we don’t make this, who will?” We had developed the skill of making ads go viral, educating and entertaining people, and it turns out the same skills worked for breaking down complex topics like inflation, Bitcoin or central planning for kids.

Ari: There was a Wall Street Journal piece about how everyone is investing in religious, non-woke content now. Do you think that trend will slow down? Where do you see this going in the next 10 or 20 years?

Jonny: I don’t think it’ll slow down soon, but it might eventually. I think we’re witnessing a pendulum swing where people want good, classic heroes and morals again because there’s so much evil around. People’s tastes are shifting.

When Angel launched The Chosen, nobody was doing that. There’s been a huge appetite for content that Christians, conservatives, and freedom-minded people can watch with their whole families. I’d like to ride this wave as long as possible, but I think the pendulum will eventually swing back the other way.

Ari: I remember talking to Neil Harmon about how there was nothing with real substance before you guys started. The movies making money were morally bankrupt. What are the biggest challenges with what you're doing? Sometimes when people try to avoid woke content, it spills over too much into the other side. How do you guys handle that?

Jonny: Yeah, that’s a fair point. You do see that course correction where conservative content can feel too cheesy or on the nose. Politics is downstream from culture, and the left has dominated entertainment for a long time.

Hollywood is left-leaning, and many talented people have honed their skills there. Some conservative movie stars have even approached Angel Studios privately, thanking us for what we’re doing. The challenge is honing our skills, making sure we're not preachy, and being as entertaining as the best properties from the left.

Working with Angel, we’ve refined our feedback loop through the Angel Guild. We run episodes by hundreds of parents, not just two studio executives. If parents don’t like it, it doesn’t go live. We’re beholden to the people who pay to watch, not to outside influences. That changes everything.

Ari: I remember Disney putting together an LGBT task force for their movies, and I thought it was satire at first. Big companies rely on all these political factors, ESG investors, and more. So, it’s great that you’re focusing on your core audience. Is there a group that gets the content before everyone else?

Jonny: You know, some creators like to keep everything close to their chest, but we’re not that precious. We create each episode in storyboard form and share it with parents to get feedback. Then we create an animated storyboard, and it has to pass the Angel Guild before it gets greenlit.

Thankfully, we haven’t had an episode that didn’t pass, but it could happen, and we’d have to make big changes before. Incentives run everything, and aligning with the people you serve benefits everyone.

Ari: That’s such a powerful thought experiment — what America would look like if Hollywood had made movies based on what people cared about instead of trying to change them. Disney would probably be more profitable today.

Jonny: Absolutely! I mean, eventually every Hollywood studio hears the feedback through box office numbers. But when a movie flops after years of investment, the correction process is painful.

Ari: Like when Top Gun came out and smashed records while a more woke Disney movie flopped. People want normal movies again. I’m glad you guys are doing this. Another question: How often do you get feedback that makes you say, “We need to rewrite this?”

Jonny: It’s rare that we need to rewrite a premise completely. We start by solving our own problem, asking what we would want our family to watch. When you're honest about that, it’ll solve someone else’s problem too.

But there have been two or three episodes where the premise was way off, and we had to make big changes. It’s helpful to get that feedback early before spending a lot of money on production.

Ari: That’s a victory for the process itself. What advice would you give parents on balancing screen time and content?

Jonny: One thing I teach my kids is to try to create more than you consume. It’s ironic since I make a kid’s show, but my wife and I try to limit our kids’ screen time. I think the amount of screen time depends on the family and child, but when you want to watch a show as a family, there’s a lot of great content out there. You don’t have to show your kids mindless garbage. There are good options.

Ari: Is there anything else you want to add?

Jonny: If you’re looking for a good educational and entertaining show, try Tuttle Twins. We give kids a foundation of freedom and constitutional values with every episode. You can actually watch Tuttle Twins for free. The first two seasons are available at Angel.com/TuttleTwins.

Some of our most popular episodes are about natural rights with John Locke, The Invisible Hand with Adam Smith, and inflation with Milton Friedman. Fair warning: if you watch that episode, your kids might complain about grocery prices!