Back in May, we spoke exclusively with Vernon Chatman about his Adult Swim series, The Shivering Truth. We shared some of what he had to say about his experience over the past two decades, lending his talents to South Park alongside Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
A lot of fans are unaware that Chatman, who has produced South Park since 2001, also lends his voice to one of the mascot characters in the series, which is none other than the friendly 'tegrity spreading towel himself, Towelie.
When we spoke with Chatman, he not only talked with us about his new series, but we also touched quite a bit on South Park as well.
If you're interested in hearing the audio interview for yourself, just click the podcast player 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 Towelie. 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 do you think of these comments from Vernon Chatman? Be sure to check out the trailer for Season 2 of his newest show, The Shivering Truth, below!
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).
The Shivering Truth recently finished its second season, and you can check it out on air on Adult Swim.