Animation fans are well aware that South Park is one of the longest running comedy cartoons there is, despite the raunchiness and occasional pushback from angry parents. The series has never been apologetic for its satire, and that's one of the aspects that has led to its continued success over the past two and a half decades.
With the show gearing up for its 24th season this year, it doesn't seem like momentum for the series is slowing down any time soon. The success of the series has allowed producer Vernon Chatman to branch out and create his own series on Adult Swim called The Shivering Truth.
In support of the second season of The Shivering Truth, we had the chance to interview Chatman himself. While speaking with him we took the time to ask a few questions about his work on South Park and what it's like voicing the pro-marijuana character of Towelie. Take a look at what he had to say below!
Joe: You’ve worked on South Park for the past two decades, what has it been like to grow and age alongside the children and residents as the years have passed?
Vernon Chatman: It’s really fun. We have a perspective on the world that is really fun to be a part of. Partially because of the world changes and the way that comedy changes, South Park is one of the few shows that has been grandfathered in outside of a lot of the cultural sniping and kind of shallow comedy fighting about punching up and punching down and what is satire and all these kinds of arguments that I find silly and absurd, and because South Park has played with these elements for so long, its interesting to see that stuff unfold and just kind of toss rocks at the insanity while also pushing our particular voice forward.
Joe: You provide the voice of Towlie. What inspires the approach you take with the character?
Vernon Chatman: It’s about 22 years of voice training. I had my larynx injected with liquid gold and I gargled with the blood of Mel Blanks and Paul Robeson which I have in vials. And then usually before we have to record Towelie I’ll meditate for about ten days straight until I can hover at least a couple of inches and then I go into the booth and let it rip!
Joe: What was your experience like playing a character who was pro-marijuana during a time when the nation was less accepting of it?
Vernon Chatman: It’s funny because I’ve never been a big pothead. You know, I never cared about any of that stuff, it all seemed very silly to me. And part of Towelie was both pot humor and the joke about how stupid and arbitrary and lazy pot humor is. So Towelie is the laziest joke in the world and that’s what a lot of pot humor is.
What is your take on Chatman's comments? Be sure to check out the Season 2 trailer of The Shivering Truth below and share your thoughts in the usual spot!
The Shivering Truth is a delicately crafted, darkly surreal anthology comedy.
Each episode is a miniature propulsive omnibus cluster bomb of painfully riotous daymares all dripping with the orange goo of dream logic. A series of loosely linked emotional parables about stories within tales that crawled out of the deepest caverns of your unconscious mind and became lovingly animated in breath-slapping stop motion -- in other words, it is the TRUTH (squared).
New episodes of The Shivering Truth air on Adult Swim every Sunday night at midnight.