Duffer Brothers’ “Main” Note for ‘Stranger Things’ Demogorgon Costume Design: Easy for “A Young Kid” to Draw

Ross and Matt Duffer, better known in Hollywood as the Duffer Brothers, joined Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday’s Tonight Show to promote the final season of their smash-hit Netflix series Stranger Things — and later, to play with some toys.

One of the topics discussed was the now-iconic design of one of the Stranger Things baddies, the Demogorgon. It’s a cool monster design, but the reasoning behind the aesthetics is even cooler.

Ahead of Stranger Things season one, the Duffers didn’t have an especially big budget to make their ambitious show, which was first intended to be a limited series. They considered various iterations of the Demogorgon before settling on what we see on streaming. Ultimately, the character design came down to two things: 1) a tall, skinny guy named Mark (Steger) needed to be able to fit in the suit, and 2) a little kid should be able to draw it the monster.

(Steger is approximately 6’3” according to the internet, which is never wrong about these things. Google AI, which has not once proved inaccurate, guesses he’s about 170 lbs. The Demogorgon is billed at 7-9 feet tall; Steger had stilts.)

“We worked with a costume designer — there were a lot of designs that came through — the main thing that we said is we want to be able to have a design where if you’re a young kid and you’ve seen the show, you can just draw it very easily,” Ross Duffer said. “So that’s how the petals came out, because it’s pretty simple to draw.”

“Yeah, it’s basically a flower and arms and [legs],” Matt Duffer said.

Apparently, somehow, it was at this exact moment Fallon first realized the Demogorgon’s head is flower-shaped.

At the end of their appearance, Fallon asks the Duffers to arrange a tray of Funko Pop Figures! in a way that foretells the Stranger Things ending. Based on their placement of the figures, things aren’t looking great for Steve Harrington (Joe Keery).

Watch the clip below:

Stranger Things 5 — the final season — has been split into three parts. The first four episodes came out on the day before Thanksgiving, and the next three will premiere together on Christmas Day. (Netflix usage that day will be record-setting — it also hosts a pair of NFL games.) The series-finale episode, which is essentially a movie, will debut on New Year’s Eve. It will be in select theaters.