What Could Have Been / The Ghost and Molly McGee

The Ghost and Molly McGee

Early designs for Molly.

What Could Have Been in this series.

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General

• The series was originally pitched to Nickelodeon back in 2003, but was passed over. Upon completion of LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, creators Bill Motz and Bob Roth re-pitched the series to Disney.
• Originally, the show was to be called The Curse of Piper McGee, but after finding out another show in development at Disney had a lead by the same name, the creators quickly changed it to Molly.
• Instead of a ghost, the original premise of the show involved Piper and her family taking a family vacation to Transylvania, where she would've been cursed by a vampire after disturbing their crypt.
• An early version of the theme song was a more ragtime-influenced piano heavy Expository Theme Tune.
• A third season was intended, with episode scripts completed and approved, but never materialized due to Disney cancelling the series in the summer of 2022. The series finale nearly became this, but Motz and Roth were able to be granted one extra episode in the second season to properly conclude the series.

Characters

• Molly McGee:
  • Among some of the early concept designs for Molly, once her ethnicity was tied down, included versions with red hair.
  • Molly originally had a beauty mark on her cheek (as evidenced by the aforementioned concept designs), but it was dropped due to being hard to keep consistent.
  • Michaela Dietz auditioned for the role of Molly before Ashly Burch was cast. She would later play Darryl.
• The McGee family originally had two more members: a twin sister for Darryl (who acted as his lawyer) and a family dog (who would've died and become a ghost).
• Andrea was initially intended to be a traditional mean girl antagonist, before being reworked into an Obliviously Evil rich girl who becomes one of Molly's friends, as the writers found the former personality too boring to work with. This made for Early-Installment Weirdness since "First Day Frights" had her debut as such, demonstrated by her hostile behavior towards Libby.
  • Earlier iterations also had blonde hair.
• Libby originally had even longer hair in early designs from Justin Rodriguez, inspired by executive Doug Benson.
  • Early concepts for Libby shared by co-creator Bill Motz on his Twitter reveal she was originally envisioned as The Eeyore, a gloomy and depressed girl (to contrast with Molly's sunny attitude) with an interest in ghosts and the occult.
  • Originally Libby was going to be voiced by Jewish comedian Jo Firestone.
• According to the series' pitch bible, Sharon's name was originally going to be Janice.
  • The pitch bible also reveals that Darryl's original age was going to be 8 instead of 11.

Episodes

Altered Scenes and Episodes

• "Ice Princess" had a cut scene featuring the opening ceremony for the Global Games.
• As seen in a piece of development art, the season one finale would have originally seen Molly enter the ghost world in her human form instead of becoming a Wraith, with the climax having Molly defend Scratch in a trial as opposed to destroying the Flow of Failed Phantoms.
• The original climax to "Double, Double, Darryl & Trouble" had Darryl going around town looking for his body, with Weird Larry and his skunks playing a sketchy game of go-fish with him.
• The season two episode of "A Soda to Remember", the heist was at first planned, à la Mission: Impossible Film Series to take place at Weird Larry’s, where his skunks would act similar to junkyard dogs. It was later changed a school daytime heist similar to Ocean's Eleven to better accommodate for the plot.
  • The ending scene showcasing Scratch's past friend was meant to be longer, but was cut for time.
• According to the series pitch bible, "Goat Your Own Way" was originally written as involving a dog, going under the title "Puppy in Peril".

Scrapped Episodes

• One scrapped episode titled "Escape From Perfektborg" had the characters somehow end up in the titular town, and needing to uncover the town's dark secrets in order to get home. The concept was scrapped as such an episode would have been far too design heavy for the show's budget, requiring the creation of far too many new characters and backgrounds.
• "Old Bake" was a proposed episode involving a giant ghost fish in Brighton Lake. While pitched constantly in the writers' room, creators Roth and Motz vetoed it every single time.
• Before Season 3 was Screwed by the Network, there would've been a storyline involving Ollie becoming the new Chairman of the Ghost World, where balancing life in the human and ghost worlds would've caused a Death of Personality, beginning with his time as a Wraith gradually making him forget about aspects of his life, such as Molly. Elements of this plot are alluded to in "The End" when Ollie states that wraiths lose their memories the longer they stay out of their bodies without any explanation of how he knows this.
• Other proposed episodes for Season 3 would include one featuring Andrea and Alina Webster, a Purim holiday special, Libby dealing with writer's block, the McGees staying at a bed and breakfast opened by Geoff and Jeff in the Ghost World (with Pete and Sharon gaining wraith forms for the visit there), Molly helping Mr. Pham regain his love of teaching, the death of Patty, Atomic Pink breaking up, Sharon confronting her hatred of cooking when Grandma Nin opens her own restaurant, the McGees having to find a replacement for Pete's lucky tie, and Scratch discovering new memories of Adia from a childhood lunchbox she buried in the McGees' backyard.
  • The script for the Andrea and Alina episode seems to include an Orphaned Reference to the intended but ultimately unproduced 100th Disney animated series; Katz Cafe, which was shelved due to SAG-AFTRA strike. It was almost set to be greenlight, but was passed due the strikes.
  • The episode about Patty's death would have also served as a major worldbuilding episode, with Molly learning from Ollie (as the new Chairman) and Scratch that the Ghost World is an in-between place for those with unfinished business (meaning not everybody who dies returns as a ghost) and the only reason it didn't seem to be like that was because of the old Chairman keeping any and all ghosts from leaving to enforce misery. This point would also play into Ollie's Chairman duties, with him attempting to solve an Overpopulation Crisis in the Ghost World by helping spirits pass on.
• The intended Season 3 premiere would have focused on Molly and Scratch discovering a rare curse that might be able to help them solve the mystery of Scratch's past. That said, the plot would not replace that of "The End", as Molly and Scratch would ultimately have their expectations with the curse disappointed, and "The End" would still function as Season 3's finale and the series finale (with the plot being largely the same).
• With the Chen family retiring their Ghost Chaser Chens livestreams at the end of Season 2, Reuben would have started a career in selling his homebrewed root beer in a partnership with the Davenports (who had lost their business in Brighton in "Davenport's in Demise"), with the episode introducing this status quo change seeing Molly having to face the possibility of the Chens and the Davenports leaving Brighton.