It only took 20 years, but the classic Pixar movie Monsters, Inc. is finally getting a follow up in the form of a Disney+ show called Monsters at Work. The spin-off series will be a direct sequel to the original film, and there will be some familiar faces in the cast too, including John Goodman as James P. Sullivan and Billy Crystal as Mike Wazowski, among others. The series will premiere July 7th on Disney+.
Monsters, Inc. was set in the bustling city of Monstropolis, where Sully and Mike worked at Monsters, Incorporated, the top energy company. In the monsters’ world, all power was generated by human screams, so the company’s operating procedure involved sending monsters into the human world via a nearly endless supply of portal doors that led to children’s bedroom closets. There, the monsters engaged in the harvesting children’s screams, but the occupation was perilous because human children were believed to be toxic.
There was an energy crisis, though, because kids were not as easily scared as they used to be, so only the scariest monsters could succeed and they were idolized by their peers. Sully, like his father, was one of the best, and his comical partner Mike did all of the technical work for him. However, one night, something went wrong. Sully saw that someone had left an active door on the Scare Floor, and while he was investigating, a human child, Boo, found her way into their world. Sully failed to return the child in time, so he took it home.
There, he and Mike determined that the child was not toxic after all, so they decided to take Boo back before the Child Detection Agency (CDA) was any the wiser. Of course, things did not go as planned, and there was all kinds of drama with Sully’s rival Randall and the company’s CEO Henry J. Waternoose III. As it turns out, Waternoose wanted to kidnap children and forcefully elicit screams using a machine called a “Scream Extractor.” That didn’t go over well, and he was arrested after accidently confessing on camera. After returning Boo to her world, it looked like the company was going to go under, but Sully had an idea.
Along the way, he and Mike discovered that children’s laughter is also full of energy. In fact, laughter is ten times more potent than screams, which solves Monstropolis’ energy crisis. So, Sully and Mike are named the new CEOs of Monsters Incorporated and they transition the company to harvesting laughter instead of screams. That is where the trailer for the new series, Monsters at Work, picks up.
Tylor Tuskmon (Ben Feldmen) has just graduated from Monsters University as a Scarer, so when he comes to work at Monsters Incorporated, he is in for a rude awakening. Because the company is now harvesting laughter, everything he has been training to do for four years is now obsolete. He is temporarily put into MIFT (Monsters Incorporated Facilities Team) because he’s not equipped to work as a comedian. However, he doesn’t exactly fit in with the misfit mechanics because he was used to being one of the cool kids in college. In Monsters at Work, Tylor will have to learn how to be funny in his new job while also learning how to get along with the people around him.
Monsters at Work stars Ben Feldman, Mindy Kaling, Henry Winkler, Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Jennifer Tilly, Bob Peterson and John Ratzenberger. The series will be available to stream on Disney+ starting on July 7.
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