Digital Storytelling Pioneers: Stewart St. John & Todd Fisher
Exploring the Future of Storytelling Across Three Decades of Technological Change
Before joining forces with Wonkybot co-founder Michael Plahuta, Stewart St. John and Todd Fisher spent decades exploring a simple but enduring question:
HOW DOES STORYTELLING EVOLVE WHEN TECHNOLOGY CHANGES?
Coming from different but complementary backgrounds, the pair shared a fascination with the intersection of creativity and emerging technology. St. John built his career as a writer, producer, and director, creating stories for television, film, and digital platforms while constantly searching for new ways to engage audiences. Fisher developed expertise in technology, digital media, and interactive entertainment, including his work as a producer at Disney, where he helped develop experiences for some of the world’s most recognizable brands during the early growth of online entertainment.
Together, they were drawn to moments when entirely new forms of media were emerging and the rules had yet to be written.
Rather than viewing technological change as a threat to traditional entertainment, they saw it as an opportunity to create new forms of storytelling.
Over the next three decades, their journey would take them through the earliest days of internet entertainment, mobile storytelling, web television, podcasting, animation, and creator-owned media. Long before many of these categories became established industries, Stewart and Todd were experimenting with ways to combine narrative, technology, and audience engagement into something entirely new.
At every stage, their focus remained the same:
USING TECHNOLOGY TO BRING AUDIENCES CLOSER TO A STORY.
A TIMELINE OF INNOVATION
* Early Internet Era: Digital media and emerging online entertainment initiatives
* 2003: Relaunch of The Spot
* 2004: Launch of The Spot Wireless
* 2006: Premiere of California Heaven
* 2015: Launch of Tara Tremendous
* 2018: Formation of Wonkybot Entertainment
* Present: Expansion into animation, creator-owned franchises, and Verticast storytelling
BUILDING STORIES BEYOND THE SCREEN
One of the most ambitious chapters of that journey began in 2003 when Stewart and Todd were asked to relaunch the Webby Award-winning online phenomenon The Spot.
Originally launched in 1995, The Spot is widely regarded as one of the world’s earliest web-based serial dramas, following the lives of seven young roommates living in a Santa Monica beach house.
When Stewart and Todd revived the property through their company, they saw an opportunity not simply to continue the series, but to reinvent it for a new generation of digital audiences.
The result was The Spot 2.0, a fully reimagined online drama featuring a new cast, new storylines, and a groundbreaking expansion into mobile entertainment through The Spot Wireless.
Created for Sprint PCS Vision-enabled phones, The Spot Wireless delivered daily dramatic “mobisodes” directly to subscribers’ mobile devices.
This was years before smartphones, streaming platforms, social media storytelling, or app-based entertainment became commonplace.
While weekly widescreen episodes unfolded online at Spot.com, the mobile series revealed additional storylines, character secrets, and narrative threads that expanded the larger story world. Together, the two platforms created a synchronized storytelling experience that allowed audiences to follow different parts of the same narrative across both web and mobile devices.
Stewart served as head writer, executive producer, and director, writing and directing hundreds of mobile episodes while overseeing the ongoing web series. Todd led platform strategy, user experience design, technology integration, and digital operations, working closely with Sprint and technology partners to help build one of the earliest premium serialized entertainment experiences designed specifically for mobile audiences.
But the innovation extended far beyond the screen.
Seeking to blur the line between fiction and reality, Stewart and Todd developed immersive audience experiences that invited fans directly into the world of The Spot.
The production introduced live fan events where audience members interacted with cast members who remained entirely in character throughout the experience. In one memorable event, Stewart and Todd traveled to Las Vegas alongside the cast to stage a fan gathering that became part of the ongoing storyline itself, with events feeding directly back into the narrative.
The team also created The Spot Phone, a dedicated phone line that allowed fans to call the beach house and leave messages for the characters. Rather than existing as a promotional gimmick, those messages became part of the storytelling ecosystem. Characters occasionally responded through the web series, referenced fan calls within storylines, or answered messages through exclusive mobile content.
The result was an unusually deep level of audience participation that transformed viewers into active participants in the fictional world.
Years before concepts such as transmedia storytelling, second-screen experiences, social engagement, immersive fandom, and interactive entertainment became common industry language, Stewart and Todd were experimenting with many of the ideas that would later become standard tools throughout digital media.
For them, however, the objective was never simply to embrace new technology.
It was to discover new ways for audiences to step inside a story.
FROM INTERACTIVE REALITY TO SERIALIZED DRAMA: CALIFORNIA HEAVEN
While The Spot embraced improvisation and audience interaction, the experience also revealed something important to Stewart: a desire to push further into long-form scripted storytelling.
The result was California Heaven, a sweeping primetime soap opera set against a backdrop of Malibu wealth, family secrets, romance, and murder.
Released in 2006, the series aired online each Wednesday night at 8:00 PM, treating the internet not as a promotional platform but as a legitimate destination for premium serialized entertainment.
Many of the actors who had become audience favorites on The Spot joined the new production, stepping into a more traditionally scripted dramatic world.
Stewart directed the series while often operating camera himself. Todd served as executive producer and production lead, overseeing operations, logistics, scheduling, technology, and the countless practical challenges involved in producing independent serialized entertainment during the early days of online video.
Together they built a close-knit creative family, filming throughout Malibu and Southern California while creating a production model that demonstrated how independent creators could develop premium episodic content outside traditional television structures.
Even as California Heaven embraced a more traditional dramatic format, the pair continued experimenting.
Inspired by the character intimacy that had made The Spot Wireless successful, Stewart developed a companion documentary-style series that followed members of the fictional Corrigan family through interviews, behind-the-scenes moments, and character-driven segments.
Once again, the goal was not simply to distribute content online.
It was to explore how emerging technology could expand the storytelling experience itself.
REINVENTING STORYTELLING THROUGH AUDIO
Years later, another technological shift presented another opportunity.
As podcasting evolved from a niche medium into a global platform, Stewart and Todd recognized many of the same characteristics that had attracted them to the web years earlier.
The technology was new.
The audience was growing.
And storytellers were still discovering what the medium could become.
Through their newly formed company, Wonkybot Entertainment, they launched Tara Tremendous, an original cinematic audio adventure following a young superhero discovering her extraordinary abilities.
At a time when much of the podcast landscape focused on interviews, commentary, and nonfiction programming, Tara Tremendous embraced ambitious cinematic storytelling, featuring a full cast, original music, sound design, and serialized narrative specifically designed for audio.
The series rose to become the #1 Kids & Family show on Apple Podcasts and helped establish Wonkybot as a growing force in creator-owned entertainment.
More importantly, it demonstrated once again that audiences would embrace new forms of storytelling when creators fully committed to the strengths of the medium.
THE WONKYBOT ERA
In 2018, the journey entered a new chapter when Stewart St. John and Todd Fisher joined forces with Australian attorney, composer, producer, and entrepreneur Michael Plahuta to launch Wonkybot Entertainment.
Built on a belief that creators should own the worlds they create, Wonkybot was founded as a multi-platform entertainment company dedicated to developing original intellectual property across audio, publishing, animation, and emerging media.
Today, the company continues the same creative journey that began during the earliest days of the internet.
Through projects such as Tara Tremendous, Origins Unknown, The Swines, and the company’s emerging Verticast initiative, Wonkybot continues exploring how audiences engage with stories across an increasingly connected media landscape.
For more than three decades, Stewart St. John and Todd Fisher have explored nearly every major shift in digital storytelling, from early web entertainment and mobile media to podcasting, animation, and creator-owned franchises.
While the platforms continue to evolve, the philosophy remains unchanged:
EVERY NEW TECHNOLOGY CREATES NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR STORYTELLING.
The tools may change.
The screens may change.
The platforms may change.
But the mission remains the same:
CREATING STORIES THAT BRING AUDIENCES CLOSER TO THE WORLDS THEY LOVE.
The technology will continue to evolve.
And the adventure is far from over.
SOURCES & REFERENCES
