It is not strictly speaking necessary to be stoned when you watch Loafy, a new series of adult-oriented animated shorts spearheaded by SNL alum Bobby Moynihan that drops on Comedy Central’s digital and social media this Saturday. But according to Moynihan, it probably doesn’t hurt. And if you don’t partake but always wondered what it was like, these colorful slices of surreal life come about as close to simulating the workings of the stoner brain as anything since the heyday of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Loafy, voiced by writer/producer Moynihan, is a laid-back manatee who moonlights as a drug dealer from his tank at the Center Park Zoo. He’s surrounded by a typically oddball cast of animals and humans voiced by folks like Cecily Strong, Taran Killam, Kevin Smith, Jay Pharoah, Nina West, Ron Funches, Tom Green, Jason Mewes, Hannah Simone, Eugene Cordero, Will McLaughlin, Shannon O'Neill and more.
In one episode, Loafy has to track down a harp for his son Beef’s (Funches) preschool talent show, which somehow devolves into a sex and drug-based transaction involving a horny monkey (Cordero) and a talking giraffe (Mewes). In another, Loafy sorts through a number of unlikely candidates trying to hire a personal assistant. A third involves an out-of-work hypnotist (Killam).
The 6 minute episodes – about the length of a Looney Tune – bear the same oblique relationship to their exaggerated sitcom premises as ordinary reality bears to the herbally-enhanced variety. All proceed with the disorienting mix of in-the-moment details and wild leaps of logic that anyone who has been to the dispensary lately would recognize. Even the loud bits don’t harsh the buzz.
Moynihan, who is set to co-star in the upcoming Mr Mayor with Ted Danson and Holly Hunter and has done voice work on shows like Duck Tales and PBS’s Nature Cat special, said he jumped at the chance to take the creative lead in an animation project. “It was daunting, hard and interesting,” he said, adding that he enjoyed working with friends and getting the involvement of people like Smith and Mewes, whose work he admired.
Moynihan says he and the cast improvised their dialogue around the basic premise of each episode, then animated the funniest bits. “The cast finished the recordings two days before the lockdown, then I recorded my lines in a closet in my house,” he said. Fortunately, the lockdown hasn’t slowed production of animation so the show is able to get a midsummer digital debut.
With much of America still holed up at home, and a majority of Americans now living in states where marijuana prohibition has been lifted, Loafy provides the kind of low-stakes entertainment perfect for winding down after a long day or just passing time chilling on the couch.
“My dream was to do some animated shorts so I could learn how to do it,” Moynihan says. “If people like it, maybe it will get picked up for series release on Comedy Central or elsewhere.”
Loafy, the original, improvised animated digital series is created, written and voiced by Bobby Moynihan, who also executive produces the series alongside Luke Kelly-Clyne and Kevin Healey's Big Breakfast, a recent acquisition of Propagate Content. Animation was produced by Cartuna. The eight episode series will rollout across all Comedy Central digital and social platforms two episodes per week, beginning August 8.