Get in the Spirit of Disney’s Cleverly Funny ‘The Ghost and Molly McGee’

The Ghost and Molly McGee Disney Channel © 2021 Disney. All rights reserved.

The Ghost and Molly McGee

Disney Channel

Premieres: Oct. 1 at 9:35pm ET/PT; Airs Saturdays at 9am ET/PT beginning Oct. 2

Who’s In It? Voices of Dana Snyder, Ashly Burch, Sumalee Montano, Jordan Klepper, Michaela Dietz

What’s It All About? This charmingly clever animated comedy comes from Bill Motz and Bob Roth, cocreators of LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, and follows the odd-couple friendship that forms between surly specter Scratch (Snyder) and joyfully optimistic tween Molly McGee (Burch). Scratch lives comfortably in an abandoned house in the economically depressed town of Brighton. But his afterlife is thrown into disarray when cheery Molly and her family move into the house.

Scratch is determined to get rid of the McGees, but soon discovers that Molly isn’t the least bit afraid. To his horror, she wants to be BFFs. Scratch puts a curse on Molly, but it backfires and forces him to be stuck with her and her uplifting attitude. (They’ll be stuck together for at least another season, as Disney Channel has already renewed the show.)

“This show is about a ghost and the girl who brings him back to life,” Motz says of their original concept for the characters. “Molly is this bright, happy, starburst of positive energy,” Roth says. “She meets this grumpy ghost, and infects him to be more like her. They become friends, and instead of him corrupting her, she corrupts him. She’s constantly flipping his negativity around to be a positive.” Molly’s also helping to revitalize Brighton. “Brighton itself is a pun,” Motz says. “Molly has come to ‘brighten’ the community.” But not everyone’s happy with the revival. “The more Molly spreads some joy through Brighton, that’s going to potentially create some trouble for Scratch,” Roth says.

Casting Burch as the voice of Molly gave the creators the opportunity to introduce a multicultural element to the show. Molly, like Burch, is half Thai, and the character’s experience in a mixed-race family is as heartfelt and enlightening as it is authentic. “There’s actually a whole episode about Molly being biracial and not quite having as much connection to her Thai roots as she wishes that she had,” Burch says. “And I was telling Bill and Bob, the creators, that it was so meaningful to me because I’m a ‘white-passing’ biracial woman who feels often like I’m not Thai enough or doesn’t know quite what that means. And that episode is written by two Asian women who can really speak to that experience.”

In the premiere episode, Molly’s grandmother inspires her to make Scratch feel a little better about their situation by providing him with a spirit house, a Thai spiritual tradition. And, like most ghosts in Thailand, Scratch has a taste for strawberry soda.

About Ryan Berenz 2166 Articles
Member of the Television Critics Association. Charter member of the Ancient and Mystic Society of No Homers. Squire of the Ancient & Benevolent Order of the Lynx, Lodge 49, Long Beach, Calif. Costco Wholesale Gold Star Member since 2011.