“Having those 3D characters and that puppetry elevated the show to a whole different place,” Knight says. “The magical reality is what makes the show special.”

Adds Dyer: “In a drama, you could have a character talk to himself. But it’s more fun if the voices inside his head manifest themselves as these objects.”

“For a cartoonist,” Knight says, “having these objects come to life and start talking to him is this individual’s ‘woke’ journey.”

Completed before the coronavirus pandemic shut down production in Hollywood, “Woke” addresses topics that later became front page news.

“What’s going on in society…what happened to George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor…(has) been going on longer than I’ve been alive,” says Executive Producer Maurice “Mo” Marable. “When you look at it on the surface, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is a ground-breaking story, to a degree,’ but it’s not. Hopefully, we’ll be able to put a modern spin on it that people will like and learn something from.”

Also, Knight says, the “Black nerds” might relate to the characters.

“Black nerds have been around for years,” says Executive Producer Marshall Todd. “In the Black community, though, it’s like a secret. I’m glad there’s a show that finally sort of shows us in our true light.”