Lynch or André had experience in the animation industry, Lynch told Horne he would have to "teach [us]". Lynch admitted to "making every mistake anybody could make" for his first animated project. "I think my worst [mistake] was when the cut came back [from overseas animation]. I looked at it and said, Okay, I have some rewrites. They said, "Uhhh, you get some retakes." I had thought retakes meant whole scenes, but it was only moments or close-ups. That was an education right there, because in live-action I rewrite all the way through post-production, I change everything all the time." - Thomas Lynch The main characters were inspired by people André knew as a child. He related how on one occasion he was telling stories from his childhood to Lynch, who responded "Oh, that's it! There's a character right there." Diversity was an important element from André's experience that he wanted to incorporate as well: "I'm in school with the mayors kids, my friends were East Indian, people from France. I was getting all kinds of influences and I thought it would be cool to have these different types of characters, different nationalities coming together as music." André also wanted to use the show to highlight music programs, which he lamented were being removed from schools in the United States at the time. Inspiration for the series' premise came from Dead Poets Society. "One of my favorite movies is Dead Poets Society, and I felt like doing that with kids. I also thought it’d be great to have this teacher teach kids in an unorthodox way, so I stepped in as the teacher, Sunny Bridges." - André 3000 Sunny Bridges' character was inspired by Sonny Rollins, who became well-known for taking a hiatus from performing live concerts to practice under the Williamsburg Bridge. By this point, the series had shifted from being "dark and sexy" to "a regular type of show" according to Lynch. In light of this direction, Michael Ouweleen suggested moving it to a primetime slot on Cartoon Network, which they agreed to. The series was planned to begin featuring guest musicians after several seasons, including Big Boi, Gwen Stefani, Pharrell or Snoop Dogg among others. Art direction Lynch and André were familiar with Cartoon Network's other series, like Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, and wanted to give the show "a flowy kind of look" in contrast to their