This season on Adult Swim, you’ll find the brand-new live-action series “Fat Guy Stuck in Internet,” a fairly self-explanatory show.
I invited co-creators/co-producers/stars John Gemberling and Curtis Gwinn, along with director Ryan McFaul to come lounge in the fabled New Yorker Cartoon Lounge with me where we enjoyed some coffee. (We were out of coffee, so I gave them hot soda.)
CARTOON LOUNGE: More coffee?
CURTIS GWINN: I had three sips of my coffee and it was disgusting.
JOHN GEMBERLING: Usually in an office like this you get Fiji water or something.
GWINN: Yeah, this is supposed to be nice. This is The New Yorker, right?
CL: They used to give out potato chips but not anymore.
GEMBERLING: Chips?
GWINN: My dad used to have framed pictures of The New Yorker at our house. It was considered a chic thing. What happened?
CL: Magazines are going out of business. It’s a dying industry.
GEMBERLING: Why all those scuff marks on the walls? It looks like shoe prints.
GWINN: That thing is filthy over there, and that, whatever that is, is that a light switch?
CL: There’s a lot of dirt under this cabinet over here also.
RYAN McFAUL: Wow.
GEMBERLING: There are lots of empty boxes and stickers on the walls.
GWINN: This is like a forty-five-year-old shut-in’s basem*nt: “This is my lounge. My parents let me have a lounge to do whatever I want with. I’m forty-five-years-old.”
McFAUL: Do you just sublet from this place?
GWINN: Are you living here? Are you actually living in The New Yorker?
CL: What gave it away?
GWINN: Your briefcase had an apple and a banana in it, and that was it.
CL: I’m sorry I’ve brought you here, to my home. So this TV show, it’s about. . .
GWINN: Well, the title’s “Fat Guy Stuck in Internet,” but it’s actually about two social workers in the Bronx elevating the expectations of the local ethnic children.
McFAUL: Every episode they take in an orphan.
GWINN: At first he doesn’t speak any English, but does by the end of the episode.
GEMBERLING: He typically says, “I love you, Mama,” in the last line.
CL: Stop lying to me. Stop lying to me right now. This magazine may be folding but we have an interview to do.
GWINN: It’s called “Fat Guy Stuck in Internet.” John plays the main character who is a computer programmer who spills beer on the computer and gets sucked into the Internet. And I play a bounty hunter sent after him to stop him. Gemberling gets into adventures trying to save the Internet, and an evil C.E.O. has hired me to stop him. And Ryan directs it all. He takes the scripts, the visuals, and everything and makes it all look wonderful.
GEMBERLING: I’m the titular fat guy.
CL: I feel like you should be fatter.
GEMBERLING: Do you?
CL: Yes.
GEMBERLING: How fat do you feel I should be?
CL: I don’t know—you’re just not as fat as “Fat Guy Stuck in Internet” would lead me to believe. I would think he would be a much fatter guy.
GEMBERLING: What do you think I weigh?
GWINN: Ballpark it. And don’t just shoot under to be nice.
CL: All right, will you stand up?
GEMBERLING: Listen to my breathing.
CL: That is heavy breathing. Do you need some more water?
GEMBERLING: No, I need less water.
CL: Okay, I. . .two hundred and ten pounds?
GEMBERLING: 210?
GWINN: Holy sh*t. Come on!
GEMBERLING: I’m muscley too. I’m strong. This is all solid.
GWINN: He’s really strong. Very muscley.
RYAN MCFAULS: Feel this f*cking thing. It’s crazy.
(Interviewer’s note: At this point I touch John’s body in several places. He is dense with muscle and shockingly veiny.)
CL: Oh my God.
GEMBERLING: My grandfather was a gold medal Olympic weightlifter—clean-and-jerk.
CL: The bald guys with mustaches who throw the weights in the air?
GEMBERLING: Yep.
CL: I still think you should be fatter.
CL: The show began as an online series. Now that you’re producing it for television, what’s been different? Do you still have creative freedom?
GWINN: Adult Swim’s really pretty cool to work with. They changed the name of the show, which we were not thrilled about. And then of course we can’t swear. We swore a sh*t ton in the original.
CL: Can you say “fart”?
GEMBERLING: Oh, you can say “fart.”
CL: Whew.
GWINN: You can’t say, “goddam.”
McFAUL: We had “goddam” in one episode and it slipped through. Then we had to change it to “clam damn.”
GWINN: Clam damn.
CL: What’s been the best part of working with Adult Swim?
GWINN: They paid us. They gave us money. That was pretty good.
GEMBERLING: The best part is that, you know, they are fairly hands off. They were a little nervous about the pilot, though. But once they saw it, once they saw the beautiful work that—
GWINN: Ryan McFaul. Skill.
McFAUL: I’m just winging it. It’s actually great because these guys are improvisers and they’re really used to kind of just riffing and winging it. I come from more of a filmmaking background. It’s been a blast because we get to really find these little jokes and bits in the moment and then turn them into these wonderful, great things.
GWINN: There isn’t anybody except for Ryan who could have done this the way it had to be done. For the cost, for the effort and time that it took to do, and for the quality that it turned out to be considering all these really limiting factors, I honestly don’t think there is anybody out there who could have done the job like Ryan.
CL: Alright, I think we got it. We got the goods.
GEMBERLING: We got the goods?
GWINN: Those were the goods?
CL: Yeah. What else do we need?
GWINN: This publication is going out of business. Those were the goods.
GEMBERLING: Want us to put our shoes on the wall now?
Big thanks to Ariel Karlin for transcribing this interview which, in its entirety, was several hours long. Watch “Fat Guy Stuck in Internet,” Sundays at 12:15 A.M. EST on Adult Swim. Or don’t. Who am I to tell you how to live your life?. . .Farley Katz
