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attackfishCommentators: Michael Dante DiMartino, series co-creator, Bryan Konietzko, series co-creator and Ethan Spaulding, Episode director and storyboarder.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Hi, this is Mike DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar, and I also wrote this episode.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: And this is Bryan Konietzko, the other co-creator of Avatar, and I did some storyboarding and design on this episode.
ETHAN SPAULDING: And I am Ethan Spaulding, and I directed this episode as well as storyboarded some sections also.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So this was a really important episode to Mike and myself, because it introduced a new main character, someone who would join our group of heroes for the rest of the series. So we really wanted to make sure, um, you know, we got it right, and put a lot of extra love into it.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, and we knew from the beginning that it was gonna be an earthbending kid who taught Aang earthbending, but we originally thought it was gonna be a guy, and the name Toph was, was there from the beginning, but for a long time we thought it was gonna be another boy, but you know, in developing it, and I think Aaron Ehasz, our head writer-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Had a great idea to, what if we made it a girl? And we talked about it, and thought about all the options, and really thought character-wise, it was going to be best to make her a girl, and she’s really added a great dynamic to the group.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I think I resisted that idea probably the longest, but in the end, I love how the story unfolded. I mean to me it’s just beautiful poetic justice that this unassuming little girl just beats up all these big muscle bound, um you know, meathead guys. So I think it was a great way to set up how just how talented and skilled she was.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: You know what? I’m gonna get it.]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: You boarded this section, right Ethan?
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah, the beginning.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Master Yu’s recruiter] I like this seedy dude, just like hustling the kids with some flyers.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: Look, there's a coupon on the back. The first lesson is free.
KATARA: Who knows? This Master Yu could be the earthbending teacher you've been looking for.]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I think this town came out really great. It feels very populated. That’s pretty hard to do on TV.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I love Aang’s earthbending outfit here too.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I figured out this is like when you go to the strip mall martial arts schools, and you have to buy the really expensive outfit just for your first class.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well that was the idea, that Master Yu here is just like, he’s all about the money. He, he knows earthbending, but he’s not maybe the most, uh, honest guy, I guess, around? Honest teacher?
BRYAN KONIETZKO: He’s not into the philosophy of martial arts, no.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: But see Aang gets to keep the suit, because he had to buy it. I think he had a coupon for a free lesson, but then he had to buy the uniform.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah. That’s how he makes his money.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So if you notice, this teenager on the left has the same hair style as one of the wrestlers, the big bad hippo. He’s like a fan of him, so he’s donning the same hairstyle. Which is kind of based on like Mongolian wrestling, uh, photos I had seen, like antique photos and stuff.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: What was I thinking? I don't need a new bag. Why'd you let me buy this?]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I think this began the C runner through the series that Sokka loves shopping, right?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think it did.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Who doesn’t love shopping? So you can tell this episode sort of became a tribute to all of us growing up watching professional wrestling.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I got to confess, this is, this is where all my years of watching wrestling finally paid off, and I could use all my knowledge. So this is Xin Fu, he’s like, becomes kind of a bad guy at the end of this episode. Ends up going after Toph. He’s like the Vince McMann of the Earth Rumble Six tournament, he’s the organizer and the money man. Used to be a wrestler. He uh, is still pretty buff, you know. But so Bryan and Ethan storyboarded a lot of this-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Fight section.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, Ethan did this whole section right here of the…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Do you want to talk about storyboarding this part, Ethan?
ETHAN SPAULDING: Sure.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think it came out awesome.
ETHAN SPAULDING: This came out really well. [Referring to The Boulder trash-talking The Hippo] I think Bryan did some nice acting reference for that.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: But it was Director Yu Jae Myung that just did an amazing job translating all that stuff.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah, it was fun drawing these too. Gave us a chance to do some crazier characters than normal.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: That fits your style a little more, kind of more exadurated.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah!
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Kind of more superhero guys.
ETHAN SPAULDING: But this stuff is really fun to do.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And a little acting voice note, uh, The Boulder here is voiced by Mick Foley, who you might know as Cactus Jack or Mankind, from WWE. And the Hippo’s kind of a King Kong Bundy kinda André the Giant kinda guy.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: These are some… All the crazy Sokka acting is from some of Ethan’s boards, really funny.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Fire Nation Man] So this guy’s like the Iron Sheik, you know the foreign guy that everyone hates.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: And for some reason, he has a Russian accent.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well that’s… All foreign bad guys do, right?
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I guess so. [Referring to the Fire Nation National anthem as rendered by Fire Nation Man] This is my favorite song too. Not as popular as Uncle’s songs, but still pretty good. [Referring to The Boulder preparing to jump off a high earth pillar] This is, this is like jumping off the turnbuckles…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughs] Yeah.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: But in the Earth Rumble, it’s like fifty feet up.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So yeah, the idea is just to set up all these guys as just big muscly-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Not very bright.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Beefcake guys, yeah. There’s our Zamboni reference right there, the badger-mole.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: He’s like smoothing out the ring in between matches.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So that’s The Gopher, he goes underground.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: The Gecko. He sticks to rocks.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: He’s like Rey Mysterio kind of.
ETHAN SPAULDING: [Referring to Xin Fu announcing Toph as the Blind Bandit] I think this section is Justin Ridge.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: [Referring to the shot of Toph lifting her championship belt over her head] That was a cool shot. That came out really good, simulating a camera shifting perspective. So the idea is that, the idea is this really dramatic shot to introduce her, and then you cut wide and she’s just tiny.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I like how excited Sokka gets about all the-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Wrestling.
ETHAN SPAULDING: There are these cool wipes in here that Justin had done on the board, it’s right in the animation. You can see like little smears on their hands.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah yeah yeah!
BRYAN KONIETZKO: This is a great way to introduce Toph. I mean this really is her character. She’s pretty arrogant, she’s pretty tough… I think it fits well with the pro-wrestling trash-talking. [Referring to Toph facing The Boulder] So this is the section I boarded. I did really want to show this unique way that she sees, sort of like sonar. So I figured, she… Since she uses earthbending to see, there’s no lighting, it’s more like she sees forms, anything tangent, and you know, mostly she can see through rock.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And so pretty much this fight only took about four seconds or something, but in slow motion you see kind of how she put it all together and realized where he was gonna step, and everything.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, it’s awesome. That was fun. We had a good time.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Wow! How did she do that?
AANG: She waited, and listened!]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So Aang knows this is going to be his teacher, because of something Bumi told him in, uh, “Return to Omashu”, which Ethan also directed, I believe.
ETHAN SPAULDING: That’s right.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
XIN FU: What No one dares to face her?
AANG: I will!]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Another concept was that this town you see in the beginning is pretty fancy, it’s kind of nice. I think we used to have some dialogue where they were denying that the, that there was an earthbending tournament going on. But then they, they basically have this guilty pleasure, where they all go to this underground fighting match.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Boo! No talking!
KATARA: Don't boo at him!]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So the idea here is Toph’s never fought an Airbender before, so Aang’s so light on his feet that if somebody goes to hit him or push him, he’ll just ride that wave. He won’t fight back. He’ll kind of… It’s like trying to punch a feather, it just floats away.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, we got a great actress to play Toph. She’s a like thirteen year old girl named Jessie Flower, who also did… she first did a voice for us on “The Fortuneteller”, she was playing, um, Meng, who was Aang’s little love interest.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: We loved her so much. She was great in that episode.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: She’s got such a cute voice, and it’s just hilarious to hear trash talk come out of like a little cute girl’s mouth.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I love that Sokka hugs Xin Fu.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: I gotta admit, now I'm really glad I bought this bag. It matches the belt perfectly.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: This is accessorizing Sokka. We’re looking forward to that action figure coming out soon with his bag and belt. [Referring to the earthbending students using their hands to stab pots full of sand] So that’s like a real training martial arts thing, right? The sand thing?
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, you see that in a lot of like Shaolin monk documentaries and stuff. I love the theme in this episode, that like, we need to… We like having strong female characters, and when people, who I will not mention, say we shouldn’t, it’s kind of nice to you know, take it all the way, and have all these, you know, tough guys, just completely scared of the girls.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I think that’s what we try to do on the show, is the girls on the show are not like just token characters, they’re an integral part, they like, in many cases kick more butt than the guys do. So it’s really, really fun to see them come to life.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I like that character hiding behind. [Referring to Sokka’s infamous “Water Tribe!” exit] Here’s some of our favorite Sokka acting right here.
ETHAN SPAULDING: That’s Bryan. That’s all Bryan.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So this guy, The Boulder talks just like The Rock, always referring to himself in third person and stuff.
ETHAN SPAULDING: [Referring to Xin Fu’s look of fury at the possibility that Toph may have thrown the fight with Aang for a share of the prize money] Nice expression.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: This is Toph’s house.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: There’s that vision that Aang saw.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, that’s the flying boar that Aang saw in “The Swamp” with Toph. So the idea is that as far as Toph’s parents know, she’s never left this estate, right?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, she’s been very protected, and everything, coddled.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah and they don’t tell anyone that they have a daughter, which is pretty sad. I really like these Toph drawings coming up. This profile’s really nice. [Refering to a shot of Toph acing Aang but glancing at Katara, annoyed and suspicious] That! I love those drawings of her, fantastic.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah, this whole section.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I’m really happy with the way her uh, irises and pupils came out. You know, we knew we wanted… It’s kind of tough in animation, like how do you make someone seem blind. So we tried not to have her blink much, she doesn’t move her irises around very much, um, and we did that kind of cloudy color treatment. I really really like the way it came out.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I think you know, the way we set her up in the first act, by being able to see so well, it’s like she sees almost better than normal people, so she’s not going to be stumbling around much as long as she’s on earth, and touching earth, she can like totally see where she’s going.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: She can see people behind walls.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, you know, As long as they’re touching the ground. So now we find out that Toph’s basically been… We know she’s an awesome earthbender, but her parents have no idea. They think she’s just taking these lessons and doing these basic forms and stuff.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I really like, I really like the way this house turned out. Elsa Garagarza, the designer, did a great job with this really elegant Chinese interior.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, it feels like a rich person’s house. Which after the kids have been camping around so much, it’s nice to see.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I think Angie Mueller did a great job on Poppy? Is that Toph’s mom’s name?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That’s the mom, yeah.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: On her giant hair. I love it. Huge pile of hair with giant flowers on it. I’m alw
ays amazed, Aldina Dias, our prop designer always designs all these neat meals and stuff for everyone to eat, like all these different foods and everything, and if you see the designs, yeah, it looks like a delicious meal, I’d like to…MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, where’s some of that? That right there on the side looks pretty good.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, looks like jello there. Some lobster.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: Oh, I'm sure she's better than you think she is.]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: [Referring to Toph responding to Aang's comments by earthbending him into his bowl] I love that timing.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So one kind of thing about Toph that we have always wanted to put in the series, but we haven’t really found the right place to put it, is this, is the idea of how she like learned earthbending if she didn’t, no one knows how good she is, and the idea is that she learned from the badger-moles, who maybe live out in the caves somewhere by her house. And she wandered out when she was like five years old, wandered into a cave. Because they’re also blind, essentially, if you remember from… They were in 2.02, and they live in the caves, and they don’t like sunlight, and they stay inside, and burrow, and make all these tunnels, and, and, uh, we had the idea that she kind of gleaned some knowledge from observing them and following them, and that’s why she got so good, and has such a unique style too.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: And speaking of her style, um, when we told Sifu Kisu, our martial arts consultant, that you know, we’d seen some earthbending by this point in the series, but we really wanted something special, something different, um… So he enlisted the help of his friend Sifu Manuel Rodriguez who does, who practices a very rare style of Chinese Kung Fu called um… I know what it is, Southern Preying Mantis, it has a more official name. But um, it’s a very rare style that has an interesting history. And it’s practiced by the inner court of one of the dynasties that ruled China. And uh, I think when the dynasty shifted, the style became banned. And what’s interesting is, you know, I had seen Sifu Manny demonstrate, and instantly, I was like yeah, that’s a great idea, it’s a really interesting looking style, it doesn’t look like anything we’ve shown before. And uh, I’ll continue it after the act break. [After the act break] So Sifu Manny came in to one of the sessions, the initial sessions for Toph’s bending, and when we explained that she was a blind character, and you know, this small girl, it turns out it’s one of the legends of the style that one of the originators was a blind woman. Just a great, happy accident. But it’s one of these styles where they actually will train blindfolded, there’s a lot of stuff about touch, so it just works really well.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, and having kind of a blind master is you know, in Kung Fu movies and legends, it’s like there’s always those kinds of characters who are these masters even though they’re…
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
XIN FU: I think the Fire Nation will pay a hefty price for the Avatar. (cut to a close up of his face) Now, get out of my ring.]
ETHAN SPAULDING: Now this, originally the kids actually fought, coming up.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah, right!
ETHAN SPAULDING: And you, Bryan had the idea to showcase Toph, and I think it was awesome.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah it was pretty late.
ETHAN SPAULDING: It, it worked out.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: It was a lot of extra work. We were pretty far into boarding, and I just said, you know what, this is Toph’s episode, it should be about her, and it just made sense. This was sort of her turf.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think it was after Sifu Manny came in also, and kind of talked about the style more, and how one person could fight multiple opponents and stuff, and it just… There were so many cool ideas that came out of that, that we ended up using for this fight.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: And yeah, it just makes her awesome, because she takes them all down. So yeah, after I had that idea, Justin Ridge, Ethan, and I had to kind of put our heads together and crank out this huge action scene with no time.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah and I think Jae Myung, the director at JM Animation, who directed this… this is some of the coolest…
BRYAN KONIETZKO: [Referring to Toph raising her arms] That shot, yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: The camera work, and-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: The blurs.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And the blurs just came out great.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: [Referring to Toph’s splayed hand hovering over the ground as she earthbends] That’s a great hand.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah and that shot… Isn’t that shot about like, Sifu Manny would show us this stuff like, where he’s actually like stretching out his knuckles and stuff?
BRYAN KONIETZKO: He extends his joints.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, his joints, which is pretty much impossible to do in our animation, but…
BRYAN KONIETZKO: [Referring to Fire Nation Man fighting Toph in a cloud of dust] So the idea here is obviously, since she doesn’t need her eyes to see, she kicks up all this dust so she can pick these guys off one by one. I love this slow motion stuff. So you see that she can sense his aim by the way he lined up his feet.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: A little side note about Fire Nation man is that he is the first sandbender we actually see.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: It’s true. He emigrated from the desert.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So Toph’s, she’s just playing with these guys.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Toph catching The Gecko’s rock balls] I love that shot too.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: The acting reference for this was one of the most strenuous things I’ve ever done. I think it took Lisa Wallander and I took like four sessions to get it all done. I think that idea of all of them landing on top of each other I think was just economical. I think we just kept re-using the same shot.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well there’s nothing funnier than dudes falling on top of each other.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah. [Referring to The Boulder showboating] I like that, you think he’s going to do a move, and he’s just flexing.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: This is also the first time that Toph’s dad has ever seen her do anything like this, so he’s like freaking out.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Really happy with the way that action came out. And it’s just great, these guys are expending all of this energy trying to show how tough they are, and she’s just very reserved, only uses as much energy as she needs, and then… [Referring to Toph, eyes closed, pulling her arms down to bend] I love this poof. Just reveals Xin Fu. So we based some of his, like his stance on this great villain from one of my favorite movies, Prodigal Son, a Sammo Hung film. It’s kind of like, um, it’s another southern style I think. Great kicks by Sifu Kisu there.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah that looks just like Kisu, with some long hair.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah the slow motion’s great.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: This is cool. This came from an idea that Sifu Manny told us about, this like Korean sort of technique, where as they would fall, they would grab a rock and throw it, sort of a deceptive technique.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And they’re just like, can’t believe.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Sokka’s come around. Now he’s a fan. he’s given up on The Boulder.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So now he have the big emotional finale, and we kind of want to set up like, maybe her dad’s seen her do all this awesome stuff, how could you deny that she is awesome? Yet he’s such a jerk that he does.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: You get the idea that her parents love her, but just a bit… Narrow minded and they’re scared, you know? They’re scared to give her any freedom. So you just see how sad that is, even though she’s got this tough exterior. She’s never known anyone her age, you know, never had anyone to talk to. I love how Poppy’s nodding really slowly. She’s not the brightest.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, she only has a couple lines, but I think you get the idea. She’ll kind of agree with whatever her husband says.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: She was pretty impressed by Aang’s little soup cooling tornando. Yeah I worked for a long time on Toph’s design. We knew she was coming up, so we started sketching pretty early, but um, really really happy with how she came out. Looked at the, looked at some of the minority groups in China, really interesting clothing, some stuff that almost looks European too, and um that’s where we got the idea for like the headband with the little pom poms, and uh, you know it’s pretty obvious we gave her a kind of an Earth Kingdom color scheme, so that each of the kids has their own like color scheme and different silhouette.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: Speaking of which, I want to show you something.
AANG: Okay.
TOPH: Now we're even. Um, I'll take the belt back.]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So you can see she’s always a competitor.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And she added a good additional dynamic to the group, because she’s got a lot of kind of sarcasm and sass too, to contrast with Sokka and…
BRYAN KONIETZKO: She’s kind of… I’m sorry. She’s kind of what we originally thought Sokka would be. A little more deadpan, a little more reserved, but yeah, it balances out nicely.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And then we wanted to set up some new villains that were going to be on their trail, um, but for a slightly different reason this time, which was-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Money!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Money! So they’re like the Odd Couple of the Earth Kingdom.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: You’ll notice Toph’s always hanging onto someone, or the saddle very tightly, because she can’t really see when she’s up on Appa, so it’s pretty scary to be up there for her. Any parting words, Ethan?
ETHAN SPAULDING: Um? This was really fun to work on, I guess, and I enjoyed it. [Whispering] That’s all. Everyone did a great job. The storyboard crew was amazing, and um, I think it just came together really well.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Oh, we should mention that you and Justin did those little still illustrations during…
ETHAN SPAULDING: That’s right, yeah, based on the old… A lot of old Japanese cartoons would throw those in.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Almost like a comic still.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Ethan’s our resident anime expert. He’s seen every anime ever created, ever done.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Especially pre-1980s.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Hi, this is Mike DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar, and I also wrote this episode.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: And this is Bryan Konietzko, the other co-creator of Avatar, and I did some storyboarding and design on this episode.
ETHAN SPAULDING: And I am Ethan Spaulding, and I directed this episode as well as storyboarded some sections also.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So this was a really important episode to Mike and myself, because it introduced a new main character, someone who would join our group of heroes for the rest of the series. So we really wanted to make sure, um, you know, we got it right, and put a lot of extra love into it.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, and we knew from the beginning that it was gonna be an earthbending kid who taught Aang earthbending, but we originally thought it was gonna be a guy, and the name Toph was, was there from the beginning, but for a long time we thought it was gonna be another boy, but you know, in developing it, and I think Aaron Ehasz, our head writer-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Had a great idea to, what if we made it a girl? And we talked about it, and thought about all the options, and really thought character-wise, it was going to be best to make her a girl, and she’s really added a great dynamic to the group.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I think I resisted that idea probably the longest, but in the end, I love how the story unfolded. I mean to me it’s just beautiful poetic justice that this unassuming little girl just beats up all these big muscle bound, um you know, meathead guys. So I think it was a great way to set up how just how talented and skilled she was.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: You know what? I’m gonna get it.]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: You boarded this section, right Ethan?
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah, the beginning.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Master Yu’s recruiter] I like this seedy dude, just like hustling the kids with some flyers.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah!
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: Look, there's a coupon on the back. The first lesson is free.
KATARA: Who knows? This Master Yu could be the earthbending teacher you've been looking for.]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I think this town came out really great. It feels very populated. That’s pretty hard to do on TV.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I love Aang’s earthbending outfit here too.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I figured out this is like when you go to the strip mall martial arts schools, and you have to buy the really expensive outfit just for your first class.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well that was the idea, that Master Yu here is just like, he’s all about the money. He, he knows earthbending, but he’s not maybe the most, uh, honest guy, I guess, around? Honest teacher?
BRYAN KONIETZKO: He’s not into the philosophy of martial arts, no.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: But see Aang gets to keep the suit, because he had to buy it. I think he had a coupon for a free lesson, but then he had to buy the uniform.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah. That’s how he makes his money.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So if you notice, this teenager on the left has the same hair style as one of the wrestlers, the big bad hippo. He’s like a fan of him, so he’s donning the same hairstyle. Which is kind of based on like Mongolian wrestling, uh, photos I had seen, like antique photos and stuff.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: What was I thinking? I don't need a new bag. Why'd you let me buy this?]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I think this began the C runner through the series that Sokka loves shopping, right?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think it did.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Who doesn’t love shopping? So you can tell this episode sort of became a tribute to all of us growing up watching professional wrestling.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I got to confess, this is, this is where all my years of watching wrestling finally paid off, and I could use all my knowledge. So this is Xin Fu, he’s like, becomes kind of a bad guy at the end of this episode. Ends up going after Toph. He’s like the Vince McMann of the Earth Rumble Six tournament, he’s the organizer and the money man. Used to be a wrestler. He uh, is still pretty buff, you know. But so Bryan and Ethan storyboarded a lot of this-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Fight section.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, Ethan did this whole section right here of the…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Do you want to talk about storyboarding this part, Ethan?
ETHAN SPAULDING: Sure.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think it came out awesome.
ETHAN SPAULDING: This came out really well. [Referring to The Boulder trash-talking The Hippo] I think Bryan did some nice acting reference for that.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: But it was Director Yu Jae Myung that just did an amazing job translating all that stuff.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah, it was fun drawing these too. Gave us a chance to do some crazier characters than normal.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: That fits your style a little more, kind of more exadurated.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah!
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Kind of more superhero guys.
ETHAN SPAULDING: But this stuff is really fun to do.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And a little acting voice note, uh, The Boulder here is voiced by Mick Foley, who you might know as Cactus Jack or Mankind, from WWE. And the Hippo’s kind of a King Kong Bundy kinda André the Giant kinda guy.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: These are some… All the crazy Sokka acting is from some of Ethan’s boards, really funny.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Fire Nation Man] So this guy’s like the Iron Sheik, you know the foreign guy that everyone hates.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: And for some reason, he has a Russian accent.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well that’s… All foreign bad guys do, right?
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I guess so. [Referring to the Fire Nation National anthem as rendered by Fire Nation Man] This is my favorite song too. Not as popular as Uncle’s songs, but still pretty good. [Referring to The Boulder preparing to jump off a high earth pillar] This is, this is like jumping off the turnbuckles…
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Laughs] Yeah.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: But in the Earth Rumble, it’s like fifty feet up.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So yeah, the idea is just to set up all these guys as just big muscly-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Not very bright.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Beefcake guys, yeah. There’s our Zamboni reference right there, the badger-mole.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: He’s like smoothing out the ring in between matches.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So that’s The Gopher, he goes underground.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: The Gecko. He sticks to rocks.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: He’s like Rey Mysterio kind of.
ETHAN SPAULDING: [Referring to Xin Fu announcing Toph as the Blind Bandit] I think this section is Justin Ridge.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: [Referring to the shot of Toph lifting her championship belt over her head] That was a cool shot. That came out really good, simulating a camera shifting perspective. So the idea is that, the idea is this really dramatic shot to introduce her, and then you cut wide and she’s just tiny.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I like how excited Sokka gets about all the-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Wrestling.
ETHAN SPAULDING: There are these cool wipes in here that Justin had done on the board, it’s right in the animation. You can see like little smears on their hands.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah yeah yeah!
BRYAN KONIETZKO: This is a great way to introduce Toph. I mean this really is her character. She’s pretty arrogant, she’s pretty tough… I think it fits well with the pro-wrestling trash-talking. [Referring to Toph facing The Boulder] So this is the section I boarded. I did really want to show this unique way that she sees, sort of like sonar. So I figured, she… Since she uses earthbending to see, there’s no lighting, it’s more like she sees forms, anything tangent, and you know, mostly she can see through rock.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And so pretty much this fight only took about four seconds or something, but in slow motion you see kind of how she put it all together and realized where he was gonna step, and everything.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, it’s awesome. That was fun. We had a good time.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
KATARA: Wow! How did she do that?
AANG: She waited, and listened!]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So Aang knows this is going to be his teacher, because of something Bumi told him in, uh, “Return to Omashu”, which Ethan also directed, I believe.
ETHAN SPAULDING: That’s right.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
XIN FU: What No one dares to face her?
AANG: I will!]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Another concept was that this town you see in the beginning is pretty fancy, it’s kind of nice. I think we used to have some dialogue where they were denying that the, that there was an earthbending tournament going on. But then they, they basically have this guilty pleasure, where they all go to this underground fighting match.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: Boo! No talking!
KATARA: Don't boo at him!]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So the idea here is Toph’s never fought an Airbender before, so Aang’s so light on his feet that if somebody goes to hit him or push him, he’ll just ride that wave. He won’t fight back. He’ll kind of… It’s like trying to punch a feather, it just floats away.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, we got a great actress to play Toph. She’s a like thirteen year old girl named Jessie Flower, who also did… she first did a voice for us on “The Fortuneteller”, she was playing, um, Meng, who was Aang’s little love interest.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: We loved her so much. She was great in that episode.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: She’s got such a cute voice, and it’s just hilarious to hear trash talk come out of like a little cute girl’s mouth.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I love that Sokka hugs Xin Fu.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
SOKKA: I gotta admit, now I'm really glad I bought this bag. It matches the belt perfectly.]
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: This is accessorizing Sokka. We’re looking forward to that action figure coming out soon with his bag and belt. [Referring to the earthbending students using their hands to stab pots full of sand] So that’s like a real training martial arts thing, right? The sand thing?
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, you see that in a lot of like Shaolin monk documentaries and stuff. I love the theme in this episode, that like, we need to… We like having strong female characters, and when people, who I will not mention, say we shouldn’t, it’s kind of nice to you know, take it all the way, and have all these, you know, tough guys, just completely scared of the girls.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I think that’s what we try to do on the show, is the girls on the show are not like just token characters, they’re an integral part, they like, in many cases kick more butt than the guys do. So it’s really, really fun to see them come to life.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I like that character hiding behind. [Referring to Sokka’s infamous “Water Tribe!” exit] Here’s some of our favorite Sokka acting right here.
ETHAN SPAULDING: That’s Bryan. That’s all Bryan.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So this guy, The Boulder talks just like The Rock, always referring to himself in third person and stuff.
ETHAN SPAULDING: [Referring to Xin Fu’s look of fury at the possibility that Toph may have thrown the fight with Aang for a share of the prize money] Nice expression.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: This is Toph’s house.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: There’s that vision that Aang saw.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, that’s the flying boar that Aang saw in “The Swamp” with Toph. So the idea is that as far as Toph’s parents know, she’s never left this estate, right?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, she’s been very protected, and everything, coddled.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah and they don’t tell anyone that they have a daughter, which is pretty sad. I really like these Toph drawings coming up. This profile’s really nice. [Refering to a shot of Toph acing Aang but glancing at Katara, annoyed and suspicious] That! I love those drawings of her, fantastic.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah, this whole section.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I’m really happy with the way her uh, irises and pupils came out. You know, we knew we wanted… It’s kind of tough in animation, like how do you make someone seem blind. So we tried not to have her blink much, she doesn’t move her irises around very much, um, and we did that kind of cloudy color treatment. I really really like the way it came out.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, I think you know, the way we set her up in the first act, by being able to see so well, it’s like she sees almost better than normal people, so she’s not going to be stumbling around much as long as she’s on earth, and touching earth, she can like totally see where she’s going.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: She can see people behind walls.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, you know, As long as they’re touching the ground. So now we find out that Toph’s basically been… We know she’s an awesome earthbender, but her parents have no idea. They think she’s just taking these lessons and doing these basic forms and stuff.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I really like, I really like the way this house turned out. Elsa Garagarza, the designer, did a great job with this really elegant Chinese interior.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, it feels like a rich person’s house. Which after the kids have been camping around so much, it’s nice to see.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: I think Angie Mueller did a great job on Poppy? Is that Toph’s mom’s name?
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: That’s the mom, yeah.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: On her giant hair. I love it. Huge pile of hair with giant flowers on it. I’m alw
ays amazed, Aldina Dias, our prop designer always designs all these neat meals and stuff for everyone to eat, like all these different foods and everything, and if you see the designs, yeah, it looks like a delicious meal, I’d like to…MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, where’s some of that? That right there on the side looks pretty good.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, looks like jello there. Some lobster.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
AANG: Oh, I'm sure she's better than you think she is.]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: [Referring to Toph responding to Aang's comments by earthbending him into his bowl] I love that timing.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So one kind of thing about Toph that we have always wanted to put in the series, but we haven’t really found the right place to put it, is this, is the idea of how she like learned earthbending if she didn’t, no one knows how good she is, and the idea is that she learned from the badger-moles, who maybe live out in the caves somewhere by her house. And she wandered out when she was like five years old, wandered into a cave. Because they’re also blind, essentially, if you remember from… They were in 2.02, and they live in the caves, and they don’t like sunlight, and they stay inside, and burrow, and make all these tunnels, and, and, uh, we had the idea that she kind of gleaned some knowledge from observing them and following them, and that’s why she got so good, and has such a unique style too.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: And speaking of her style, um, when we told Sifu Kisu, our martial arts consultant, that you know, we’d seen some earthbending by this point in the series, but we really wanted something special, something different, um… So he enlisted the help of his friend Sifu Manuel Rodriguez who does, who practices a very rare style of Chinese Kung Fu called um… I know what it is, Southern Preying Mantis, it has a more official name. But um, it’s a very rare style that has an interesting history. And it’s practiced by the inner court of one of the dynasties that ruled China. And uh, I think when the dynasty shifted, the style became banned. And what’s interesting is, you know, I had seen Sifu Manny demonstrate, and instantly, I was like yeah, that’s a great idea, it’s a really interesting looking style, it doesn’t look like anything we’ve shown before. And uh, I’ll continue it after the act break. [After the act break] So Sifu Manny came in to one of the sessions, the initial sessions for Toph’s bending, and when we explained that she was a blind character, and you know, this small girl, it turns out it’s one of the legends of the style that one of the originators was a blind woman. Just a great, happy accident. But it’s one of these styles where they actually will train blindfolded, there’s a lot of stuff about touch, so it just works really well.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, and having kind of a blind master is you know, in Kung Fu movies and legends, it’s like there’s always those kinds of characters who are these masters even though they’re…
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah, yeah.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
XIN FU: I think the Fire Nation will pay a hefty price for the Avatar. (cut to a close up of his face) Now, get out of my ring.]
ETHAN SPAULDING: Now this, originally the kids actually fought, coming up.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Oh yeah, right!
ETHAN SPAULDING: And you, Bryan had the idea to showcase Toph, and I think it was awesome.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah it was pretty late.
ETHAN SPAULDING: It, it worked out.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: It was a lot of extra work. We were pretty far into boarding, and I just said, you know what, this is Toph’s episode, it should be about her, and it just made sense. This was sort of her turf.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: I think it was after Sifu Manny came in also, and kind of talked about the style more, and how one person could fight multiple opponents and stuff, and it just… There were so many cool ideas that came out of that, that we ended up using for this fight.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: And yeah, it just makes her awesome, because she takes them all down. So yeah, after I had that idea, Justin Ridge, Ethan, and I had to kind of put our heads together and crank out this huge action scene with no time.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah and I think Jae Myung, the director at JM Animation, who directed this… this is some of the coolest…
BRYAN KONIETZKO: [Referring to Toph raising her arms] That shot, yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: The camera work, and-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: The blurs.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And the blurs just came out great.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: [Referring to Toph’s splayed hand hovering over the ground as she earthbends] That’s a great hand.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah and that shot… Isn’t that shot about like, Sifu Manny would show us this stuff like, where he’s actually like stretching out his knuckles and stuff?
BRYAN KONIETZKO: He extends his joints.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, his joints, which is pretty much impossible to do in our animation, but…
BRYAN KONIETZKO: [Referring to Fire Nation Man fighting Toph in a cloud of dust] So the idea here is obviously, since she doesn’t need her eyes to see, she kicks up all this dust so she can pick these guys off one by one. I love this slow motion stuff. So you see that she can sense his aim by the way he lined up his feet.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: A little side note about Fire Nation man is that he is the first sandbender we actually see.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: It’s true. He emigrated from the desert.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So Toph’s, she’s just playing with these guys.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: [Referring to Toph catching The Gecko’s rock balls] I love that shot too.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: The acting reference for this was one of the most strenuous things I’ve ever done. I think it took Lisa Wallander and I took like four sessions to get it all done. I think that idea of all of them landing on top of each other I think was just economical. I think we just kept re-using the same shot.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Well there’s nothing funnier than dudes falling on top of each other.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Yeah. [Referring to The Boulder showboating] I like that, you think he’s going to do a move, and he’s just flexing.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: This is also the first time that Toph’s dad has ever seen her do anything like this, so he’s like freaking out.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Really happy with the way that action came out. And it’s just great, these guys are expending all of this energy trying to show how tough they are, and she’s just very reserved, only uses as much energy as she needs, and then… [Referring to Toph, eyes closed, pulling her arms down to bend] I love this poof. Just reveals Xin Fu. So we based some of his, like his stance on this great villain from one of my favorite movies, Prodigal Son, a Sammo Hung film. It’s kind of like, um, it’s another southern style I think. Great kicks by Sifu Kisu there.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah that looks just like Kisu, with some long hair.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah the slow motion’s great.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: This is cool. This came from an idea that Sifu Manny told us about, this like Korean sort of technique, where as they would fall, they would grab a rock and throw it, sort of a deceptive technique.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And they’re just like, can’t believe.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Sokka’s come around. Now he’s a fan. he’s given up on The Boulder.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: So now he have the big emotional finale, and we kind of want to set up like, maybe her dad’s seen her do all this awesome stuff, how could you deny that she is awesome? Yet he’s such a jerk that he does.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: You get the idea that her parents love her, but just a bit… Narrow minded and they’re scared, you know? They’re scared to give her any freedom. So you just see how sad that is, even though she’s got this tough exterior. She’s never known anyone her age, you know, never had anyone to talk to. I love how Poppy’s nodding really slowly. She’s not the brightest.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Yeah, she only has a couple lines, but I think you get the idea. She’ll kind of agree with whatever her husband says.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: She was pretty impressed by Aang’s little soup cooling tornando. Yeah I worked for a long time on Toph’s design. We knew she was coming up, so we started sketching pretty early, but um, really really happy with how she came out. Looked at the, looked at some of the minority groups in China, really interesting clothing, some stuff that almost looks European too, and um that’s where we got the idea for like the headband with the little pom poms, and uh, you know it’s pretty obvious we gave her a kind of an Earth Kingdom color scheme, so that each of the kids has their own like color scheme and different silhouette.
[Interjection of dialogue from the show:
TOPH: Speaking of which, I want to show you something.
AANG: Okay.
TOPH: Now we're even. Um, I'll take the belt back.]
BRYAN KONIETZKO: So you can see she’s always a competitor.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And she added a good additional dynamic to the group, because she’s got a lot of kind of sarcasm and sass too, to contrast with Sokka and…
BRYAN KONIETZKO: She’s kind of… I’m sorry. She’s kind of what we originally thought Sokka would be. A little more deadpan, a little more reserved, but yeah, it balances out nicely.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: And then we wanted to set up some new villains that were going to be on their trail, um, but for a slightly different reason this time, which was-
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Money!
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Money! So they’re like the Odd Couple of the Earth Kingdom.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: You’ll notice Toph’s always hanging onto someone, or the saddle very tightly, because she can’t really see when she’s up on Appa, so it’s pretty scary to be up there for her. Any parting words, Ethan?
ETHAN SPAULDING: Um? This was really fun to work on, I guess, and I enjoyed it. [Whispering] That’s all. Everyone did a great job. The storyboard crew was amazing, and um, I think it just came together really well.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Oh, we should mention that you and Justin did those little still illustrations during…
ETHAN SPAULDING: That’s right, yeah, based on the old… A lot of old Japanese cartoons would throw those in.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Almost like a comic still.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah.
MICHAEL DANTE DIMARTINO: Ethan’s our resident anime expert. He’s seen every anime ever created, ever done.
BRYAN KONIETZKO: Especially pre-1980s.
ETHAN SPAULDING: Yeah.
