Adult Swim smash “Too Many Cooks” is made with Atlanta ingredients

Creator Casper Kelly says film is homemade through and through
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“It feels like I was smuggling cocaine in a condom, and I swallowed it, and it exploded inside of me.”

That’s Adult Swim show runner Casper Kelly delicately articulating the euphoric\nauseating experience of having a party joke that happened to make network president Mike Lazzo laugh morph into “Too Many Cooks”—an eleven-minute viral sensation with more than five million views to date.

But one of the highs of having so many eyeballs on this 80s-sitcom-intro parody run amok is showcasing the movie-making powers of Atlanta:

  • Produced on a meager budget, the short was shot in a warehouse off Fulton Industrial Boulevard, the cop-show scenes filmed in the street outside.
  • Every one of the 70-plus actors was cast from the metro area through local agencies Atlanta Models and Talent and Patrick Ingram, appearing behind their real names, some having gone through a quick “turn-your-head-and-smile” audition. A few are also performers from Dad’s Garage.
  • The bearded lead who tries to nudge into the exponentially multiplying TV family before turning murderous is played by Atlanta extra William Tokarsky, who now has an expanded role on Kelly’s show Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell.
  • His co-star, Smarf, is an off-brand Alf puppet custom-made for the video by Chris Brown and Shane Morton with ties to The Center for Puppetry Arts.
  • You can thank Atlanta musicians Michael Kohler Shawn Coleman, Cheryl Rogers, Michael Magno, and Patty Mack for that infectious theme music.
  • Other local production credits go to Bluetube, Awesome Inc. animation, Doppler Studios sound, and Fake Wood Wallpaper Productions.

While this trip has been frenzied, Kelly says he’s open to taking it again. He’s already started thinking of ideas for more short films. As for whether the Bearded Man or Smarf might return . . . like any good 80s crime serial or “very special episode of” two-parter, Kelly likes a cliffhanger: “I don’t want to say.”

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