Celebrated Animation Producer Mike Young talks up Ryan Reynolds, Wrexham & SuperTed on Kabillion

“It’s just insane for me that only one goes up automatically. If it were different both of these clubs would be celebrating together.—Ryan Reynolds, Wrexham co-owner and Deadpool star"

So, it’s not only the Premier League, where Arsenal and Man City are duking it out for supremacy, with a tete a tete contest coming up on April 26. But there’s also a ding-dong, two-team race for top spot in the National League, the fifth tier of English football. Not only is the league title up for grabs, but only the top-placed team gets automatic promotion to League Two. With less than a handful of matches left in the schedule, Welsh team Wrexham lead Notts County, by the slimmest of margins—Wrexham with 3G left have 104P from 43G, while County has 103P from 44G.

Reynolds, and fellow Hollywood denizen and Wrexham co-owner Rob McElhenney, have brought investment, commitment, glitz and glamour to North Wales. Reynolds is spot on when he suggests there should be multiple automatic promotion spots to be granted to the National League—the second placed team will go into the “lottery” of the playoffs. But both clubs have a rich history. Wrexham in North Wales, have won the Welsh Cup a record 23 times and are the oldest club in Wales. Notts County, likewise have a storied history, being one of the 12 founder members of the Football League in 1888.

Welsh ex-pat and also a longtime Hollywood resident, Mike Young, is a die-hard supporter of South Wales footballing team, Cardiff City. Young, who openly welcomes the possibility of a fourth Welsh club (after Swansea, Cardiff and Newport) playing in the English Football League (EFL) next season, is BAFTA Award-winning producer, who founded two animation companies in both the UK and the US. In 2015, his company changed its name from Mike Young Productions to Splash Entertainment, which also is a majority owner of the popular AVOD network Kabillion.

Young enthuses over Wrexham’s success which includes Welcome to Wrexham, an American sports documentary series which airs in the US and UK, with Season-2 to premiere in the summer of 2023. Young, whose signature animated show, SuperTed, has recently been reformatted for modern day screen apertures and is now having a second life on Kabillion on YouTube, says of the wonderful Wrexham story:

“I thought stories about a team such as Wrexham being bought by a couple of well-known Hollywood actors and rebuilding a dilapidated team and ground, and indeed a whole community were just that—the stuff of Hollywood fairytales! Add to that a reality documentary series on a major worldwide SVOD network, shirt sponsorship by a huge brand, and most important of all, actual massive on-field success. It seems like someone cornered AI technology, and we have all been fooled. It also makes Ted Lasso look like an understated bit of factual filmmaking.”

Affable Young’s whole family is involved in the entertainment business, including wife and partner Liz Young who runs all production at Splash; their daughter Sarah is EVP at Disney Series Television, while their son Pete runs creative at Splash, and son Andrew used to be Director of Animation for twenty years; additionally, Mike’s stepson Richard Finn is a Director and Head of Postproduction at Splash, while his daughter Kylie Finn, who is 10 years old and a twin, does voice over promotions for Kabillion; and, another granddaughter Chloe (of “Chloe’s Closet “ fame) is attending NYC Film School. Mike quips about the use of the term “Taff” (nickname for a Welshman) combined with Mafia to describe the Young family, saying, “The Western Mail, once ran an article with the headline naming us the ‘Animation Taffia’!”

Young is also developing a biopic movie based on the biography “The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw” about brilliant and legendary player Robin Friday who briefly played in Wales for Cardiff.

And, still wearing his Welsh dragon on his sleeve, Young continues on about Wrexham:

“My Welsh footballing brain, which has been tortured by failure over many decades of being an ardent Cardiff City and Wales national team supporter, is having great difficulty processing all this success. The negative side of my mind says even the step up to League Two, where they will meet teams such as Bolton, Cambridge, Oldham Athletic, Southend, and the mighty Newport County (writer Ashley Collie’s hometown), will be a real challenge. Players will have to be bought, wages will be higher, and the ongoing dream will meet real challenges. However, before all that and after they confirm promotion, Wrexham will travel to LA, where they will face Manchester United in a friendly in front of forty thousand American supporters who have paid hundreds of dollars even for the cheapest seats to watch the continuing and literal dream team.”

Indeed, Young is enthused about another Welsh team hopefully taking on the auld enemy—English teams—next season:

“What I especially respect is that the lads who have bought the team, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, are now fully besotted uber-fans of their own team. They have revitalized a whole community and given Wales the opportunity to have four teams in the ‘English’ Football League, which means more blood and thunder derbies and hopefully the opportunity for more Welsh kids to develop into great stars of the future. The major thing missing from US professional sports is the thrill and devastation of promotion and relegation.”

There ain’t nothing like it.

Just ask Ryan Reynolds, who in the aftermath of a crucial and recent win over rivals Notts County, enthused: “I don’t feel like I have a heart anymore, I think I used all the beats I have left in that match. That was like nothing I have ever seen before and indicative of all you lifers who have watched and participated in this beautiful, tortuous game forever. I’m actually grateful that I didn’t care about this years ago because it would have eaten me alive.”

Check out Mike Young talking about Robin Friday “The Greatest Player…” and drop in on Ryan Reynolds talking about “Welcome to Wrexham.” Also check out Young’s Splash Entertainment (formally Mike Young Productions); Kabillion, the home to watch the new and improved episodes of SuperTed in celebration of the show's 40th Anniversary; and, also new animated shows on Kabillion.