Vinny & The Colonel: We Talk To The Producers About Their New Comedy Central Digital Series

An animated series featuring two ignorant, foul-mouthed fish, Vinny Gill and Colonel Peppersnacks; overly confident best friends who have left the ocean behind to conquer the rap game. The series has launched, and we had a chance to talk to the producers, Jon and James that you can see below.

A couple of months ago, Comedy Central head Kent Alterman had two points of interesting notes in regards to the ever-changing business model of the longest-running comedy network in the United States. For starters, he’s noted that other than South Park, the network hasn’t had much luck in launching a new animated series despite some stellar efforts like Drawn Together, Brickleberry, and Jeff & Some Aliens. The other note he had was figuring out how to monetize on Comedy Central original programming initiatives on the various social platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram.

Probably the most prominent of social network support for an animated comedy by Comedy Central in the last few years was by way of Legends of Chamberlain Heights, which had an ardent social following literally built from the ground up by the show’s creator Josiah Johnson. Josiah was able to harness the power of an animation app and make custom Legends shorts commenting on the daily headlines of what was usually the sports world but Josiah was also not afraid to do the same in regards to politics or celebrity news, and then would flood them on Twitter with great fanfare.

At the same time, Comedy Central had largely abandoned the aforementioned app and instead scoured the web for up and coming animation producers that they would then showcase on its #SaturdayMornin(ish) Cartoons lineup featuring Mikey Heller, Jamie Loftus, and @twofishouttawater. As a result of the success, Comedy Central picked up @twofishouttawater, rebranded it Vinny & The Colonel for a new shorts series that is available on the Comedy Central App.

Vinny & The Colonel producers Jon and James launched production of the web series almost a couple of years ago but as a stop-motion shorts series that featured Jon and James voicing cardboard cutout characters Vinny & The Colonel on an Instagram profile that also showcased cutouts of Donald Trump giving head to Adolf Hitler. But, from this came Vinny & The Colonel, a series that features two fish that are…well…out of water in the NYC area trying to figure out how to become rap artists.

The premise is actually not unlike Jon and James, two guys who had met years ago as budding musicians ended up moving to Hollywood to write comedy in an adult animation industry they know all too well as fans. James counts himself as a huge Mike Judge fan, “Beavis & Butthead was my go-to”, also counting King of the Hill, South Park, Family Guy, The Simpsons, Archer, Rick and Morty, and even Cartoon Network mainstays like Adventure Time and Over the Garden Wall as some of his favorites. Jon counts old-school Nickelodeon faves like Ren & Stimpy, Rocko’s Modern Life, and yes, more South Park.

That last part is important because if you look at the parallels between Jon and James and early Matt Stone and Trey Parker, they are definitely there. Anyone who has watched the South Park pilot known as “The Spirit of Christmas” that got the show picked up to series by the fledgling Comedy Central network can definitely see aesthetic similarities from that whence compared to @twofishouttawater. Today, Jon and James count Aqua Teen as the visual homage for their Comedy Central App adaptation, but the stylistic similarities in aesthetic are still there with both shows featuring single-camera adult animation at characters that are usually always pointing towards us save for eyes which help the viewer determine who is looking at what.  

The premises between South Park and Vinny & The Colonel couldn’t be more different. Whereas South Park has a plethora of characters at their disposal, Jon and James pitch Vinny & The Colonel as more of an absurd buddy comedy, “Vinny Gill is your classic overconfident character with out of reach aspirations whereas Colonel Peppersnacks just sort of reacts to the world as shaped by Vinny” says Jon, “it’s a story about two misguided idiots that are out of their element trying to make it in the world.” The producers tease additional characters that you’ll see in the show’s first three episodes that are streaming now. James’ mom is the inspiration for a promiscuous can of tuna, nowhere near as gross James assures me, but her personality and the way James’ mother speaks are apparently a big part of the tuna can’s character. The guys also tease an episode featuring “Manzini the Genie”, a genie that was at one point, trapped in a turntable from the nineties that is then freed and grants the guys three wishes in the most rushed way possible, “the genie character allowed us to meld our love of music with animation in a comical way “ says James.

While signs look good for additional episodes, Jon and James have grand aspirations of their own, “I hope the fish get 25 seasons with 200 episodes…FISH FOREVER!”, says Jon. Yes, that sounds nuts, but it’s not entirely implausible as James notes that the shorts released on the various Comedy Central social channels are actually derived from one 22-minute episode just split up into three videos teasing that these guys are ready for big-time Comedy Central, “the network’s been really cool in letting us write what we want to write, they’ve reigned us in a bit, but for the most part they’ve been really supportive and we’re excited to be working with them.”

Who knows, these guys could be coming on right after South Park one day.

You can stream three brand-new episodes of Vinny & The Colonel on either the Comedy Central App or here.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity