Alex Bulkley on “Trip Tank” Season 2 & the future of “Jeff & Some Aliens”

 

Alex Bulkley is the co-founder of ShadowMachine, along with partner Corey Campodonico, and the animation studio has had one hell of a strong 2015. BoJack Horseman is getting ‘Series of the Year’ respect from us, Trip Tank Season Two is getting ready to kick off its 20-episode run on Comedy Central, there’s a spin-off on the way for Jeff and Some Aliens (which will debut 10 episodes next year), and a stop-motion feature film called Hell and Back will be hitting theaters in October. Bulkley talked with us about the future of TripTank, including sketches that are coming back, new sketches, guest stars, and how the Jeff and Some Aliens pickup will play with the second season of the Comedy Central sketch series.

Bubbleblabber: How do you balance fan favorite sketches from season one of TripTank with new ones for season two?

Alex Bulkley: Our goal going into the 2nd season when we had 20 half hours, was to bring back ALL of the fan favorites. We have plenty of real estate to do so. We have picked up more installments of season one favorites like “Ricky the Rocketship,” “Bethiffer,” and “Jeff & Some Aliens”. On top of that, we’ve paired down about 6000 projects to 275 projects.

Bubbleblabber: Last season in our interview, you had mentioned the international talent submitting ideas for sketches. How does this continue for season two?

Alex Bulkley: We went into this process pretty agnostic. This season we received pitches from talent coming from Australia with over a  handful to a dozen showing up this season. That said, we have a solid in-house team, but we’ve enjoyed incredible talent from abroad, which allows for more diversity and a different tone to that animation. It’s always funny, just a different perspective on what’s funny. 

Bubbleblabber: Is programming an episode similar to that of putting together a puzzle, in that you are trying to fit different sketches with different jokes, all the while putting together 22 minutes of content?

Alex Bulkley: We definitely have to pay attention. This season, we saw a lot of shorts having to do with time travel … and we can only pick one or two of those, or we start cannibalizing the show. On the other hand, sketches dealing with joke topics like sex and drugs are broad enough that they would certainly rear to a head in the programming stage. For example, someone would be programming and mention, “Wow, these sketches are extremely violent!” We certainly try our best to do diverse comedy subjects and inevitably there’s a bit of a thread but it’s not always intentional, it just happens that way. The exciting thing is, the amount of time in which the shorts will go, and then it’s amazing how quickly the 30 minutes can go by. Whether it’s a short that has a run time of 10 seconds to 10 minutes, its like watching a car accident; you can’t help but want to watch it. 

Bubbleblabber: The social element of TripTank is fairly evident. Last year you guys had eight episodes on TV, but TripTank shorts showed up all through the course of the year – whether on platforms like Vine, Twitter, and Facebook, or for the holidays like Christmas or Fourth of July. How did this come about?

Alex Bulkley: The multi-platform approach is very organic to what the show is. We are able to spread out these little comedy grenades in multiple formats, and Viacom definitely sees the value of being multi-platform for our audience – whether it’s on Facebook, on your tablet, or on Vine, they want to see it in different ways and in different measures.  The more the merrier because there’s a big fat playground for us. A lot of the times, our audience makes this stuff for us. We actually have this sign on our wall that says, “By the people for the people,” which ensues a big collective effort to create content that is by audience for the audience. We make stuff we like to watch.

Bubbleblabber: This season, you guys are expanding on the social element by allowing fans to call in on a hotline, leave a voicemail, and then you guys take that and turn it into a sketch for season two animated by Shadowmachine. How did that come about?

Alex Bulkley: The show – how it’s built – is conducive for getting people involved. Last season, we introduced the interstitial TripTank sketches and we introduced a new character played by Jonah Rey. In the sketches, people are calling to love and hate the show, and we wanted to extend that to the fans. 

Bubbleblabber: The press release announcing the season two premiere of the show mentioned sketches with Dana Snyder in the form of “Jerk Kitchen”, Ne-Yo with “Loud Ninja”, and “Rest Assured” from Mike Clattenburg. Can you go into more detail on how these sketches were produced?

Alex Bulkley:  Anytime you get pitches from Dana Snyder, you pay attention, and you can’t help but laugh when he explains his pitch with his voice behind it. We were actually a little skeptical at first with what to expect from Jerk Chicken, but the execution blew our minds, and as such, is now a reoccurring sketch for the season.

Ne-Yo, along with having a stellar music career, is a huge fan of animation. For this season, not only did he write, design, and help direct Loud Ninja, but he did every single voice all in one take – back-to-back – at his own studio. He’s playing about a dozen characters, from ninjas to mafiosi, and you can see why he’s so talented and successful. It’s actually hard to tell it’s even him.

With Rest Assured, we can all related to the TSA airport lines. This is the snide approach to what happens when you get on these lines, and it’s pretty outrageous, and there’s a really spectacular animation style that was produced for it.

Bubbleblabber: What are some of the guest-starring highlights fans can look forward to for TripTank season two?

Alex Bulkley: Andrew Dice Clay and Kevin Dillon did a mob style short that’s really funny. Maybe one of my favorite performances features Jon Hamm as a shotgun-toting dad that discovers the Easter Bunny. Quite possibly the greatest fart joke I’ve ever run across is that of Malcolm McDowell. Jim Belushi is part of Dad World, and gives an amazing performance. David Hasselhoff plays Dr. Chimp in Versus. Gary Anthony Williams stars in Dream Wizard, which is all about a wizard that whispers in your ear while you sleep – and that has quickly become a studio favorite.

Bubbleblabber: With Jeff and Some Aliens getting a spin-off series with 10 episodes at 22-minutes each, how do you keep what made the shorts series, all the while retooling for a longer run time? 

Alex Bulkley: Sean Donnelly and Alessandro Minoli have proven themselves just with the scripts and expanded world that they certainly aren’t sacrificing the tone or premise or style of the show, despite the longer run time. Actually, I think Jeff and Some Aliens is better suited for the longer format, but the five shorts we did with TripTank season two are going to blow people’s minds.

“TripTank” season 2 premieres Friday, September 25 at Midnight ET/PT