World of Wonder Turns 30: Producing Partners Reflect on Punk Origins and ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Success

Producing partners Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato met as freshmen on the first day at New York University film school in the early 1980s. First impressions are everything, and so were their outfits.

Bailey, from the coastal English town of Gosport, was wearing diamond earrings and skin-tight fluorescent leopard pants and had his hair in a bun. Barbato, of Boonton, New Jersey, was wearing a hand-painted T-shirt featuring the face of Marcia Brady. “Randy said, ‘I like your pants,’ and I said, ‘I like your T-shirt,’ ” recalls Bailey. “We were both lying.”

Still, the ensembles telegraphed a shared punk-rock-meets-pop-culture sensibility that cemented their relationship. “What became very clear in that moment was that we were outsiders in the film program and we became instant friends and collaborators,” he adds. “We’ve been working together ever since.”

What started casually — they shot each other’s thesis films before dropping out — became formal with the 1991 launch of World of Wonder, a production company focused on nonfiction stories, often about the marginalized (TransGeneration, Becoming Chaz), the misunderstood (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and the downright fabulous (RuPaul’s Drag Race). They now employ nearly 125 staffers in their Hollywood headquarters.

In addition to obscenely long résumés (they have produced more than 250 projects and share nearly three dozen credits as co-directors), they oversee the subscription-based streaming platform WOW Presents Plus, the media blog The WOW Report, a YouTube channel with nearly 2 million subscribers and an ever-expanding Drag Race franchise that spans 13 regular seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race and post-show Untucked; international editions in Canada, Spain, Australia, Chile, the U.K., Holland, Thailand and Italy; six All Stars seasons; the fan convention DragCon; merchandise; a Vegas revue; an upcoming mobile game; and more.

“Randy and Fenton have been at the forefront of bringing us into rich subcultures and worlds, long before anyone else,” says Chris McCarthy, MTV Entertainment Group president and CEO. “Drag culture and the Drag Race franchise are just two of the many examples.”

The duo’s first project out of NYU was actually an experimental music group called The Fabulous Pop Tarts. “Film was expensive, cameras were expensive,” explains Bailey. “We thought if we became pop stars, we’d have the money to make films. We were like the Pet Shop Boys — but not successful.”

They had at least enough potential to land publishing deals that paid to launch the company. “The first thing we bought was a fax machine,” Barbato notes. “We built World of Wonder on the back of our failed pop career.”

Like so many art house filmmakers at the time, they turned to public access TV, pairing found footage with original segments in inaugural series Manhattan Cable. From there, they sought out bigger platforms. For 1993’s L.A. Stories: From the Eye of the Storm and the BBC, Bailey and Barbato gave camcorders to a diverse set of Angelenos to document their own lives in the wake of Rodney King’s beating by LAPD officers, just as The Real World was becoming a cultural phenomenon.

Around the same time, their Videos, Vigilantes and Voyeurism for Channel 4 in the U.K. caught the eye of then-HBO documentary doyenne Sheila Nevins. “That was the beginning of a very long relationship with HBO,” says Barbato. Projects for the outlet include The Eyes of Tammy Faye, adapted for a September feature of the same name; Monica in Black and White; Carrie Fisher: Wishful Drinking; Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal; and their latest, Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes, based on Ronan Farrow’s explosive Harvey Weinstein investigation, and Small Town News.

“We’ve always felt we were shining the light on people who were considered marginal to others, but we always thought that if you get to know them, we’re all the same,” says Barbato. Finishing the thought, Bailey adds: “It’s a recognition that the outsider voice is the true mainstream voice. That’s been our DNA on pretty much every project. Normality doesn’t exist — it’s an illusion.”

While they often focus on those misunderstood or vilified by the mainstream media — see televangelist Tammy Faye Baker, Playboy icons Pamela Anderson and Anna Nicole Smith and murderous club kid Michael Alig, who inspired their narrative feature Party Monster — their instincts often land ahead of the curve. The 2013 documentary I Am Britney Jean followed Britney Spears as she was working to rebuild her career amid her conservatorship and a very public breakdown — years before the current controversy surrounding the pop superstar.

At their headquarters, Bailey and Barbato’s offices are positioned directly across from each another. Though they see eye to eye on many things — the pair were romantic partners for 20 years, separating around 2003 — they admit sparring about decisions as co-directors. Barbato says Bailey “understands how to distill things and how to get at the big ideas with as few words as possible.” Bailey, in turn, says Barbato is “very savvy about how to get something done and make everybody feel happy about it.”

HBO’s Nancy Abraham, co-head of documentary and family programming, calls the duo “unbelievably versatile,” saying, “They can tackle any subject and format. They have unlimited creativity and are never complacent, bored or boring.” Co-head Lisa Heller says Bailey and Barbato supported the Catch and Kill podcast series and brought life to the show. “If anyone can bring cinematic adventure and propulsion to a story, even in challenging times, it’s Randy and Fenton.”

The WOW founders’ legacy, however, now seems inexorably tied to a reality competition. RuPaul’s Drag Race has defied all expectations, winning three straight Emmys in the genre’s top category (the show has collected 19 Emmys in all) and hitting record ratings (1.3 million viewers) in its season 13 finale.

Neither Bailey nor Barbato can pinpoint the moment they met the titular host, but Bailey has a clear picture of the first time he laid eyes on the world’s most famous drag queen, in Atlanta. “He was in thigh-high boots, a jock strap, shoulder pads and a big fright wig, and we turned to each other like, ‘Oh my God,’ ” he says. “He was a star. It was just a matter of the world catching up to that idea.”

They floated that idea with various projects over the years, from 1993’s RuPaul’s Christmas Ball to two seasons of The RuPaul Show in 1997-98. But it wasn’t until RuPaul’s Drag Race exploded by way of Logo, then VH1 and now Paramount+, that he became a cultural icon. “People ask, ‘Are you surprised at the success of Drag Race?’ ” says Barbato. “Yeah, kind of, but we’re not surprised at the success of RuPaul.”

The show has introduced more than 250 drag queens to audiences, castings that are coveted as a way to kick-start sustainable careers through touring, merchandise, brand deals and even movie roles (alums Willam and Shangela appeared in Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born opposite Lady Gaga). Says Bailey, “The day before filming starts, [the team] talks to the queens to say, ‘Don’t worry about the competition, because you’ve already won.’ “

As for what’s next, you won’t catch Barbato peering into a crystal ball. “We don’t think about the future,” he says bluntly. “We think about now. And we’re just getting started.”

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30 Years Around the World
A decade of indie docs is followed by a string of mainstream hits.

1991: WOW is founded by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey.

1998: The Real Ellen Story airs on Channel 4 U.K., Bravo and PBS.

2000: The Eyes of Tammy Faye is released by Lionsgate; WOW moves into its landmark 1930 art deco building on Hollywood Boulevard.

2003: Party Monster, starring Macaulay Culkin, debuts.

2006: Million Dollar Listing L.A. bows on Bravo, spawning Miami, New York and San Francisco versions.

2009: Season one of RuPaul’s Drag Race airs on Logo TV.

2010: Launch of YouTube channel WOWPresents; The Last Beekeeper wins an Emmy.

2012: RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars airs on Logo TV.

2013: I Am Britney Jean airs on E!

2014: Bailey and Barbato are honored with the IDA Pioneer Award.

2015: RuPaul’s DragCon bows in L.A., with iterations in NYC and the U.K. to follow.

2016: Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures airs on HBO.

2017: Launch of WOW Presents Plus SVOD

2018: Drag Race becomes the first show to win a Primetime Emmy for outstanding reality competition and host in the same year, then repeats the feat in ’19 and ’20.

2020: WOW Docs is launched.

2021: Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes bows on HBO; RuPaul’s Drag Race earns nine Emmy noms.

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Drag Race by the Numbers 

72.8 MILLION Spotify plays from RuPaul track “Sissy That Walk,” heavily featured in the series

11.1 MILLION Instagram followers for the five most-followed contestants, with season 6 winner Bianca Del Rio ranking No. 1

2 MILLION+ Prize money the franchise has handed out since 2009, bolstering the historically low-paying drag industry

532 Episodes to-date across original series, spinoffs and international versions

48 Emmy nominations since 2015, with 19 wins and counting

This story first appeared in the Aug. 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.