LOS ANGELES – In the upcoming Pixar adventure comedy Hoppers, a young scientist uses a new technology that lets her mind “hop” into the body of a lifelike robotic beaver.

Now able to communicate with real beavers and other animals, she discovers the surprising “pond rules”, or rules of life, that creatures live by. The animated tale features the voices of American actors Piper Curda as animal-loving protagonist Mabel and Jon Hamm as the mayor trying to destroy the animals’ habitat.

The film’s writer-director Daniel Chong, whose parents migrated from Singapore to the United States before he was born, says the “pond rules” taught to him by his Singaporean parents shaped his childhood in the US.

Due to open in Singapore cinemas on March 5, 2026, Hoppers is the big-screen feature debut of Chong, a Chinese-American animator known for creating the beloved Cartoon Network series We Bare Bears (2015 to 2019) and its spin-off, We Bare Bears: The Movie (2020).

Chong, 46, was born in North Dakota and grew up in southern California, where he still lives today.

Speaking to The Straits Times over Zoom, he says his immigrant parents’ Singaporean values “almost certainly” rubbed off on him as a child.

His father, who worked as an engineer before becoming a professor of business management, and his mother, a stay-at-home parent who later worked as a nurse, were both “very strict with me and understandably so”, Chong recalls.

And like many first-generation Asian immigrants in the US, they did not understand their son’s dream of becoming an artist.

“They didn’t quite know what it meant to have an art career, although that was something I kind of wanted pretty young,” says the film-maker, who attended the prestigious California Institute of the Arts and worked as a storyboard artist on animated hits such as Inside Out (2015) and Cars 2 (2011).

“So, I would say, if they had ‘pond rules’, it was definitely, like, ‘Focus on studies, make sure you play your piano and do all the prerequisites before you do the fun stuff like drawing.’

“And as long as I did that – as, I think, most Asian parents would demand – I was okay,” Chong says.

The animator’s Singapore connection has also inspired his work on at least one occasion.

“The one time we did a shout-out for Singapore was after I had visited there doing some press for We Bare Bears. They took me to see the Merlion, which I know is probably the most cliched thing in Singapore, but we actually put that in an episode,” he says of the animated sitcom, which follows three adoptive brothers – a panda, grizzly and polar bear – as they navigate human society.

Praised for its understated humour and charm, the show – based on Chong’s 2010 webcomic The Three Bare Bears – went on to win an Annie award for Best Animated Television Production for Children and pick up an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Short Form Animated Programme.

Released in July 2025, the first trailer for Hoppers hints at another charming and unique story about animals, which Chong says he has always been drawn to.

“I’ve always loved animals. I love drawing them, and that was really my entry point to art. I had this encyclopaedia of animals as a kid, and every day, I would open it up and just copy pictures from it.”

In Hoppers, he wants to tell “a story about humans’ relationship with animals – and what animals think about us, which is a big mystery”.

Animal-loving scientist Mabel (left, voiced by Piper Curda) lets her mind “hop” into the body of a lifelike robotic beaver in the Pixar film Hoppers.

PHOTO: PIXAR

While developing the movie, he also learnt beavers are “incredible animals – a keystone species that creates an ecosystem for a whole array of other animals”.

In 2024, an article in entertainment magazine The Hollywood Reporter quoted an unnamed former Pixar artist who claimed the animation studio’s bosses had forced the Hoppers team to “downplay its planned message of environmentalism”.

But Chong, who reportedly began working on Hoppers at the end of 2020, says “that’s not entirely true”.

“All movies here go through so many changes, and this movie just changed a lot over the time period that we made it, because it’s hard to be articulate right away with how you want to frame it.

“But we were very aligned with the studio and with (parent company) Disney about what this movie was about, and they never questioned it,” he adds. “I’m very happy with how the movie came out and nothing got toned down, nor were we ever told to.”

Hoppers opens in Singapore cinemas on March 5, 2026.