Ariel Winter returns as the titular character in 'Sofia the First: Royal Magic' Courtesy of Disney First she was finding out what it means to be royal, now she’s learning what it means to be magic.
Sofia the First is returning to Disney Jr., 14 years after the original show debuted. In the first iteration, Sofia, who is known as Disney’s “first little princess,” became royal when her mom married a king. In the new series, dubbed Sofia the First: Royal Magic, the titular character discovers that she is the most magical princess in the realm and must learn how to master her powers while making new royal friends.
“It’s a show that really captures so much of what preschoolers are going through, in terms of making friends and figuring out how to make sense of the world,” says Alyssa Sapire, head of original programming and strategy at Disney Jr., of the show’s lasting appeal. “And then to take a little girl figuring out how to become a princess, it’s so aspirational for kids.”
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Indeed, the kids who comprise Gen Alpha and the tail end of Gen Z grew up with the original iteration of the show, which debuted in 2012 with the animated television movie Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess, followed by the series premiere in January 2013. Sofia the First still holds the record for top 3 cable TV telecasts for the girls 2-5 demo and top 2 with kids 2-5. Disney Jr. says the series has also notched more than 1.2 billion views on its YouTube channel.
Craig Gerber, creator and executive producer of Sofia the First: Royal Magic, who developed and exec producer the original series, has a theory on why the show has endured.
“The character of Sofia turned out to be a very compelling, engaging character,” he says. “She is a princess who rescued herself, who rescued her friends. She is very kind, she is very brave, she is always going to try to do the right thing no matter what, and when she makes mistakes, she picks herself up off the ground and tries again, and so I think there’s a lot there for young kids to relate to as a role model.”
Winter, who is reprising her role as the voice of Sofia, agrees. The adjective she uses to describes the princess include good-spirited, amazing, kind, empathetic, brave and adventurous. “She’s got so many good qualities that over the years, it really influenced a generation in such a positive way; people just gravitated towards her,” Winter says. “When I was making the first series, I was learning from her. I loved voicing her because I was like, wow, it just puts me in such a good mood to be Sofia. Seeing how it impacted [young viewers] meant so much to me.”
Sofia (Ariel Winter) makes new friends at the the Charmsville School for Royal Magic, including Layla (Mela Pietropaolo), Zane (Kai Harris) and Camila (Aaliyah Magcasi). Courtesy of Disney In addition, while the show features magical elements, it also stays grounded.
“There are fantastic things that happen, but not anything can happen, and the reason we did that was so that kids could feel like they could live in that world,” he says. “It felt like a real place, even though there are flying horses and trolls and magic. So, all those things combined with the lessons of friendship and the that people got when they watched the show, I think those are all those things that create a feeling that kids then want to experience again later. It an escape. It’s a place where they feel like they can go and be and exist and be with those characters they fell in love with for a little while and forget all their other problems.”
Sapire echoes that comment, calling it “comfort food” for the generation who grew up with it.
“We really have the best fans,” adds Winter. “We have been so grateful and so lucky that everybody who has seen the show has really resonated with it and has loved it. That’s really all we can ask for. Being able to do this series again, but in a fun new setting and new [situations], it just means so much to get to have a whole new generation of kids be able to experience the magic that is Sofia. It is such an honor to be able to come back and do it again.”
The idea for the new show came about in part due to the original series’ longevity with fans, as those who grew up with it continued to show their passion for it and preschoolers discovered the show for the first time and connected with it.
“Because we had seen this continued connection with Sofia over the years, we felt like there were still many more stories to be told,” Sapire says. “And we saw [older kids] continuing to want to revisit Sofia and her family and her friends, and now we’re seeing it with the original target age group — new preschoolers who are engaging with it — and so we’re seeing this now across generations. Seeing that excitement and that enthusiasm, we really thought there were new stories to tell.”
Echoes Gerber: “Once everyone realized that Sofia was a show that had stood the test of time, that there were a lot of fans and that world had really connected with people, there was a desire to do another show in that world.”
Ariel Winter in a Sofia the First: Royal Magic recording session. Disney/Frank Micelotta However, the new iteration actually started as a spinoff of Sofia the First (the show previously produced another spinoff, Elena of Avalor, which Gerber also created; it premiered in 2016). The idea at first was to set the show at Royal Prep, the school Sofia attends, but with new characters. “I was involved with that because I loved the world and the characters, and I was happy to revisit that world,” Gerber says. “You create so many different elements of a world, that there’s always something you can go back and play with. But through the course of development, we realized that the story that really needed to be told were the further adventures of Sofia. Once we realized that, it became a matter of, well, what’s she going to do now?”
Gerber says he started thinking about what would have happened next for Sofia if the original show had continued on. Having graduated from Royal Prep, Sofia needed a new place to make new friends and have new adventures. That’s when the idea for the Charmsville School for Royal Magic came about.
“That’ll provide a fresh new hook for the audience,” Gerber says of his thinking at the time. “That would appeal to both new viewers and potentially also old viewers if they want to see what happens next, but really give a fresh new starting-off point that separates from the original show, because you need to have a reason why the new show is happening, besides, let’s just make more episodes.”
Having adjusted to life as a royal, Sofia will now learn what it means to be a magical princess, surrounded by new friends Pepper (voiced by Nate Torrence), a mix between a dog and a unicorn, or a puppy-corn, and magical classmatees Layla (Mela Pietropaolo), Zane (Kai Harris) and Camila (Aaliyah Magcasi). Also joining the voice cast in recurring/guest roles are Beanie Feldstein as Wildfyre, Sofia’s flying horse; Yvette Nicole Brown as Lady Saddlespur; James Monroe Iglehart as Lord Primrose; Jeremy Swift as Mr. Muddykins; and Tony Hale as Mimsy Fizzlewick.
Reprising their roles from the original series are Wayne Brady as Clover, Sofia’s bunny friend; Tim Gunn as Baileywick, chief adviser to the king; Eric Stonestreet as Minimus, the flying horse; Sara Ramirez as Queen Miranda, Sofia’s mom; Travis Willingham as King Roland, her stepdad; Darcy Rose Byrnes as Amber, her stepsister; and Jess Harnell as Cedric, the royal sorcerer.
Arial Winter as Sofia the First and Nate Torrence as Pepper, Sofia’s adorable yet mischievous pet puppy-unicorn, a character created for Sofia the First: Royal Magic Courtesy of Disney Sapire and Gerber say it wasn’t a hard sell to get the original cast on board.
“It seemed to me that the the actors who played the characters who were coming back to do their voices had very fond memories of the show, and were both surprised and elated to be able to do it again,” Gerber says. There was some concern that perhaps the cast who’d been kids during the first run might not be able to still do the voices given they’re now grown-ups, but “once we realized they could still do their character voice, everyone has been so happy to be part of it. It’s been like a reunion, like a family reunion, of all these really talented actors and actresses who’ve grown up, and it’s nice to see them again so many years later. … Every single one of them — it was like they never stopped doing the character. They just picked up right where they left off.”
Winter says she found out about the sequel through a director with whom she’d worked on Sofia the First. “At the time, it was really just like a loose thought,” she says. “Nobody had contacted me because it wasn’t like set in stone.” After Winter got the call, and the did a test for the network, she learned it was getting picked up. “I just was so excited because it was always one of my favorite projects I had ever worked on,” she says. “And there’s nothing that feels more positive and special than spending like some time voicing such a wonderful character and knowing the impact it’s going to have.”
Once she was back in the booth, she was nervous but quickly slipped back into character. “I had kept Sofia alive, for myself, all of these years, because I would make voice memos for people’s kids or their cousin or little sister, little brother, anyone who would tell me that like they loved the show,” she says, sharing that she’d pretend to be calling these kids asking if they wanted to have a playdate in Enchancia, for example.
Winter has no hesitation when asked how long she could continue voicing Sofia: “I will play her as long as they let me.”
One of the most memorable parts of the show has always been the music — from the catchy theme song to the songs featured in each episode.
That’s where songwriters John Kavanaugh, Keith Harrison Dworkin and Matthew Tishler come in. Kavanaugh also was part of the original series, earning a Daytime Emmy for his work. The songs are “always intrinsic to moving the story forward,” Kavanaugh says. It’s also important that they appeal to both the target kids demo and their parents by not “dumbing it down,” he adds.
The new iteration will feature two 11-minute stories, vs. the 22-minute format of the original. Sapire notes that this format is pretty standard in preschool storytelling. But there’s also the option to tell longer stories in the future, including a holiday special or bigger tentpole episodes.
Twice the story lines in each episode also means twice the original songs. Fortunately for Kavanaugh, Dworkin and Tishler were brought on board to help with the extra lift. (“We’re working with three different songwriters rather than just one, because I don’t know how they’d sleep if we were working with just one,” Gerber jokes.) Each 11-minute segment will feature a brand-new song. “There is no downtime,” says Kavanaugh. “We get a song, we start working on it, we demo it, we send it in.” The song gets approved, or not, and then tweaking is done if needed, before the cast records it. Meanwhile, another song is already headed their way. “It’s a constant merry-go-round,” adds Dworkin, who is also the songwriter on Disney Jr.’s SuperKitties.
They credit Gerber with having a clear vision for the show for helping them nail down the tunes. Gerber and the show’s writers send lyrics to Kavanaugh, Dworkin and Tishler, who set about making sure the melodies match the character and the tone of the story. They are able to make suggestions or changes to the lyrics to fit the melody. “It became very clear to me early on that the success of Sofia is because of Craig’s clarity as a creator,” Dworkin says. “He really cares, he comes from his heart, he’s got a great brain, and it all just makes sense right out of the gate, and that’s not always the case across all projects. I can be pretty aggressive with how I rewrite the lyrics, and the grace that Craig and the other lyricists have given me has been really great. … In this line of work, confusing is the enemy, and there’s never any confusion with Craig.” Agrees Kavanaugh: “He’s very collaborative, and he knows what he wants.”
Kavanaugh also wrote the theme song along with Gerber and updated the tune for the new iteration. (Hear the new version in the video below.)
Kavanaugh says keeping the spirit of the original was an intentional choice for a few reasons. “The network wisely wanted to not ignore the history,” he says. “I didn’t know this, but they sent us the information the other day — 130 million streams globally from that theme song. So they didn’t want to ignore that, but they wanted a new take on it to make it worth people being reinvested in it, or re-listening, and so the basic big idea is that the first half of the song is half-time, and it’s much more current, and sparse, in a way, and then when the chorus comes along, it’s much more like the original, with that energy and that magic. But it’s just got a fresh vibe to it.”
He notes that TV theme songs tend to stay in the heads of kids who grew up with them, for example, how The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family themes still bring nostalgia to adults who watched those shows in their youth. The Sofia the First theme recently sparked a viral trend on TikTok. Given the fondness for the song, it made sense not to overhaul it completely or ditch it entirely for a new tune — but Kavanaugh saw no reason to give it an update.
“I said to someone when we were producing it, you know, the first version is out there, and it’ll always be out there,” Kavanaugh said. “So what’s wrong with doing a new version? It can only be a new version, you know? It doesn’t take anything away from what we originally did, or what the people originally heard. So, I think it’s pretty cool.”
For her part, Winter says the music has always been important to the show, and moreover, it’s what keeps the younger viewers engaged.”
“I was telling some of my mom friends, ‘You guys are going to absolutely love these songs,'” Winter says. “Because sometimes as parents, I feel like they listen to the music in the shows and they’re like, ‘OK, I’m gonna hear this song over and over and over again.’ And I feel like for our series, people have never really felt that way, but especially in this [iteration], we have so many different genres of music that we’re going to cross, that is so fun. I think people are going to love it.”
Winter also shares that the songs this year explore new genres. Kavanaugh and Dworkin admit that’s the case, but likely due to Dworkin’s and Tishler’s involvement (“Having a couple different songwriters adds a little more spice and variety,” says Dworkin) — but there’s one genre we may not see Sofia tackle, at least not yet.
“We have not rapped yet,” she says with a laugh. “That’s one genre we have not crossed yet.” Would she try it, if asked? “I would give it a try,” she says. “It might be a little embarrassing, but I would give it a try.”
The show will continue its tradition of including guest-starring spots from beloved Disney princesses throughout the new iteration. In addition to Rapunzel, Jasmine, Cinderella, Aurora and Elena of Avalor (who was spun off into her own series in 2016), Moana will make her first appearance on the show, voiced by the animated film franchise’s star Auliʻi Cravalho.
Sofia gets a visit from Rapunzel in Sofia the First: Royal Magic. Courtesy of Disney Gerber notes that which princess appears depends on what kind of help Sofia needs. In the first iteration, a particular princess showed up only once; this time around, we might see the same princess more than once. Also, “there may be different reasons they show up; rather than the princesses coming to Sofia, Sofia might come to them,” Gerber says.
Echoes Sapire: “It really depends on the storytelling, and who of the princesses have the attributes, or the expansive stories, around them that can lend themselves so seamlessly into Sofia’s world.”
And, as Sapire notes, as Sofia learns about her magical powers, this gives more opportunity for more Disney princesses to make appearances): “They have the experience and years ahead of her, so we felt like between bringing that mentorship in and having Sofia build a new world with some new friends,” she says. “At a new school, there was just a lot of places we could go with it.”
However, Gerber adds that including the iconic characters also comes with a little bit of stress. “We have to write those characters in our Sofia episodes, and you have the burden of, ‘Am I writing this well? Is this writing worthy of that character?’ And so it’s a real moment of truth, [for example], when Auliʻi comes into the booth and says the words that we wrote for her as Moana. You’re gripping the arm, the chair, hoping it sounds right, and luckily it sounded great. And then to see her bring all that warmth and humor to the words was extraordinary.
Sapire notes Moana wasn’t even a character yet when Sofia the First had its original run, “so we’re excited that we’re able to create these story opportunities to connect” Moana and Sofia. She adds that, unlike the original run, in which the princesses appeared only one, this time around, Rapunzel, Jasmine, Cinderella, Aurora and Elena of Avalor will appear in more than one episode, “where it makes sense in the stories.”
Winter says she was excited when she heard Moana would be making an appearance. “I was super stoked for Moana,” she says. “Moana is just cool. She’s so amazing and strong.”
From left: Craig Gerber, creator/executive producer of ‘Sofia the First: Royal Magic’; Ariel Winter; Ayo Davis, president of Disney Branded Television; and Alyssa Sapire, head of Disney Jr. original programming and strategy. Disney/Jesse Grant Likewise, the songwriters have the challenge of writing tunes that fit the princesses who make cameos throughout the season. It’s important to fit the personality of each princess and stay true to the character, they say. For example, “in the original, when we were writing for Jasmine, it was a very Aladdin-type of song — pop and full of energy,” Kavanaugh says. And when Mulan appeared, her song was “strong and energetic and warrior-like.” The upcoming soundtrack will include a song titled “Be Bold” that features several of the princesses singing together.
And, as Sapire notes, as Sofia learns about her magical powers, this gives more opportunity for more Disney princesses to make appearances. “They have the experience and years ahead of her, so we felt like between bringing that mentorship in and having Sofia build a new world with some new friends,” she says. “At a new school, there was just a lot of places we could go with it.”
Gerber says that while the primary aim is to entertain the target demo, he and his team strive to make a show that parents and kids alike can enjoy together. “My goal in anything I make is to create a show that families can watch together,” Gerber says. “I know that sometimes it’s great to have something that kids can sit down in front of and give mommy or daddy a break, and I totally respect that. I lived it. But I also know that in this age where everyone could be on their own screen, you do remember the times when you sat down and watched something together. I actually still hear about that from parents: ‘Sofia was the show we’d watch together and then we’d talk about it,’ and they could cuddle and have family time while enjoying something together. So we try very hard, our whole team does, to create something that can be enjoyed by a child by themselves, but has enough going on in the story for a parent to also enjoy watching with them. That’s the goal every time.”
As you might expect, Disney will be launching a new product line in the U.S. and then globally. “There is an exciting, new line of product coming out,” Sapire says. “We do a lot of connecting with kids in understanding how they play, how they want to engage with characters, when they’re not watching.”
Sofia the First: Royal Magic will premiere Monday on Disney Jr. and Disney Jr. on Demand, with the first eight episodes available to stream on Disney+ in the U.S. and select international markets the next day.
Travis Willingham and Sara Ramirez reprise their roles as King Roland and Queen Miranda, respectively, in ‘Sofia the First: Royal Magic.’ Courtesy of Disney THR Newsletters
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