Template:Tammie Souza - Development

The Souzas co-creator Ava Zinn wrote, produced and wrote several episodes of her second cartoon series Queen of the Willis. Souza played a rendition of herself in "Brandi See, Donkey Do", first broadcast in December 2011. In the episode, Souza's fictionalized persona displays characteristics that replicate to the later The Souzas character. However, she dressed formally and behaved slightly similarly to her role as a meteorologist at WTSP-TV (channel 10) in Tampa, Florida. Zinn found Souza's personality and performance from the real-life CBS affiliate so outstanding that she created a character for Queen of the Willis and The Souzas.

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The character we've created is kind of this alternate-universe Tammie Souza where she's the mother of one fo the main characters, and we deliberately have not made any references to her as a television personality, because we like keeping that separate. It's the obvious place to go. We tried it with Bob Donaldson, Diane Willis, and Kaitlyn Kendall; we thought it would be funny to do something different with Brandi Souza's mother. People like Clyde Lee who have taken whacks at this sort of thing — there's a precedent for it. She's Brandi's mother, but she's this woman who clearly does not have it all together.

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Souza is the first Souzas character, whose voice actress voices herslef. Additionally, Souza–along with Bob Donaldson and Kaity Kendall–are respectively Deanna's mother-in-law, Ava's father-in-law and Kendra Kendall's sister. Souza, Donaldson, and Kendall are the relatives to the main characters on Queen of the Willis.