‘Yo Gabba Gabba!’ lead creative designer’s time in the entertainment industry all began when he became a child actor.
Parker Jacobs began his acting career in Utah in the 1970s. After working alongside their uncle, David Jacobs, and doing BYU film, Jacobs and his siblings got an agent and moved to California for more acting opportunities.
“I had a fun time working on the ‘Wonder Years.’ That was something memorable; working with those guys at the time in my mid-teens was a lot of fun,” Jacobs said. “When I was younger, I did a Toys "R" Us campaign or series of commercials … whenever you went in the toy stores you could hear my voice saying, ‘I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys "R" Us kid.’”
Jacobs said his family was fortunate to have a good experience in the acting industry, but after growing up, serving missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and seeing what could go wrong in the industry, he and his brother, Christian Jacobs, decided to do things on their own.
“My brother Christian was like, ‘You know, we don’t need to knock on the front door anymore. Let’s just make our own things,’” Jacobs said. “And that’s kind of what we ended up doing. It started withThe Aquabats.”
Before his mission, Jacobs and his brother formed their own bands. Jacobs started a band called GoGo 13 while his brother, Christian, started another called The Aquabats. Because The Aquabats had “silly costumes” they created a backstory for the band. They were superheroes.
After Jacobs returned from his mission, he joined The Aquabats team. The ska band found some success, toured nationally and its music played on the radio. As a creator and designer for the band Jacobs went on to design monsters for the band of heroes to fight on stage.
“On stage there was a red cyclops that I would get in the costume and get beat up by him,” Jacobs said. “I got tired of getting beat up in that costume, so we designed a much safer, fuzzier costume, which ended up becoming Brobee for ‘Yo Gabba Gabba!’”
Jacobs said these monsters had a charm of their own and could make cute characters outside of the Aquabats. Christian Jacobs and stepcousin, Scott Schultz, put the new show together and hired Jacobs to design and make the show look good.
Jacobs said ‘Yo Gabba Gabba!’ ran for four seasons and was renewed for a new show called ‘Yo Gabba GabbaLand!’ which is available on Apple TV+.
“It’s basically the same show,” Jacobs said. “We have a child host and it’s from a child’s perspective, which is kind of fun.”
To learn and hear more from Parker Jacobs, listen to the full interview on BYU-Idaho Radio’s podcast on Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.