Total Drama Island star shares joy at show’s first gay couple and teases trans plot

Total Drama Island star and writer Terry McGurrin has talked about his love for the show’s first queer couple – and hinted at possible trans characters in the future.

For anyone not familiar with the zany world of Total Drama Island, here’s the rundown. The cartoon, which first aired on Teletoon in Canada in 2008, is a satire of survival reality shows such as Survivor and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here.

The show has aired different seasons under the guise of multiple spin-offs with different names before taking a break from 2014 until this year.

Now that we’re up to speed, here’s the good part: gays!

The new season has featured the show’s first openly gay character (Bowie) and the first same-sex romance, featuring both Bowie and Raj – with the former placed firmly in the show’s finale, vying for the prize fund of one million Canadian dollars.

The pair “shared a surprising shark-infested tapioca romance” – don’t ask – before Raj was airlifted off the island, having sustained terrible injuries. Again, the show is animated, but that hasn’t stopped McGurrin appreciating the outpouring of support for the queer characters.

McGurrin, who plays the host of the show, Chris McLean, (heavily influenced by Survivor‘s Jeff Probst) and is the executive producer of the Total Drama Island reboot, took to Twitter to share his joy, writing: “I love that we have our first openly gay character. Love that we have our first same-sex romance. Love that fans have shipped so many same-sex couples from current/previous seasons and share their art and theories!”

After calling the show’s fans creative and awesome, he went on to hint about more possible queer characters in upcoming seasons.

“I very very much want a trans/non-binary character in the next season, That would be so amazing,” he said.

Elsewhere in the thread, McGurrin called Bowie “such a fun character to write for” as well as praising Bowie’s voice actor (Brandon Michael Arrington) as “soooo f’n amazing”.

Total Drama Island currently airs on Cartoon Network.