With so much standing in the way of a smooth production process, Christopher Mintz-Plasse is beyond excited to see the continuation of his latest acting project. He just wouldn’t recommend watching it when you’re high.
With its second season as a digital series for Comedy Central setting sail on January 30, Blark & Son continues its unlikely journey from a 30-second Instagram project, led by creator Ben Bayouth and head writer Adam Aseraf, to a full-fledged puppet-animation series. With a new slate of episodes ready to be churned out every Saturday, Mintz-Plasse feels that even with the 15-year friendship that he, Bayouth and Aseraf share, and the addition of even more “old school” friends in the writer’s room, this new season represents the growth of a unique comfortability that truly helped bring out more creative potential this time around.
“There’s definitely a sense of comfortability with the three of us, and we even brought in more old school friends to be in the writer’s room, and to edit it, so it was really seven best friends who have known each other for 15 years working on this,” Mintz Plasse tells Vanyaland. “So there is a lot of comfort in the creativity, and a lot of love that was put into it.”
While the creative comfort might be there, in terms of chemistry, the production side of things was a different story over the past year. Mintz-Plasse is quick to acknowledge the obstacles put in place by the COVID-19 pandemic, but he also feels that, for being able to overcome said obstacles, the hard work he and the rest of the cast and crew put into the new season really shows in the final product, and that makes the team that much more proud of the new episodes.
What started as a quick-hitting labor of love about an absurdly overly-macho puppet father who is always trying to connect with his nerdy son to no avail has certainly captivated a unique fan base since it emerged on YouTube.
Granted, that fan base is mostly comprised of people who are equally freaked out and engaged by the puppets and their intensely distorted, yet life-like features, but they’ve also come to appreciate the balance between absurdity and the fairly heartwarming through line of a father-son relationship, and Mintz-Plasse is proud of the show’s ability to balance all of that, while still maintaining the heart and soul it was born out of.
“I’m just extremely proud of everyone, and I’m proud of Ben and Adam for making this work during such a crazy time,” says Mintz-Plasse. “They were hands-on with everything, and without a huge budget in addition to those obstacles, they still put a lot of hard work and love into it, and I think that really shows.”