Gritty Chimp Guide to: Dino Stamatopoulos

The guy in the casket is responsible for the crazed shenanigans that is Moral Orel and new AS right horror show: Mary Shelley's Frankenhole. Gritty Chimp unearths (ahem) some fiendish facts about the new show - and its devilishly talented creator, Dino Stamatopoulos...

As well as having one of the best names on the planet Dino Stamatopoulos has been a vital cog in the Swim machine for many years, giving us stop motion greats like Moral Orel and Mary Shelley's Frankenhole as well as popping up in some pretty unexpected places. But to really do this guy justice I'm going to first dig deep and take a trip to Moralton USA.

Moral Orel is one of the most successful shows in Adult Swim history. In a Swimerverse littered with one hit wonders and the ghosts of shows past, Moral Orel got a massive three seasons under its belt, establishing it as a true Swim classic. Stop motion-loving Dino Stamatopoulos is the man behind it all. His unique tale of a young boy innocently exploring morality in a small middle American town worked so well because this guy knows how to write characters. The show was inspired by the TV Dino grew up with, in particular 50's family show Leave it to Beaver and it's animated in a similar style to those wholesome American Christmas animations from the 60's that are still huge in America but in the UK you'll usually only find on ITV at 4am on a bleary eyed Christmas morning 

That all sounds very quaint but this is a Swim show we're talking about, right? Whilst everything in Moralton has that sickly cleaner-than-clean Osmonds vibe on the surface, deep beneath are dark secrets and unchecked hypocrisy that show the lengths people will go to to present themselves as perfect citizens in the eyes of their neighbours and the local church. More often than not Orel wanders blindly into adult situations interpreting everything according to his understanding of the Church's teachings. This leads him to smoke crack, drink his own urine and practice necromancy all innocently in the name of the lord. It's then up to his dad to sort the mess out with a stern talking to and a few slaps from his belt.

The first two seasons worked this formula well, blending the funnies with the darker material, which incidentally was once deemed too dark and sexually explicit even for Adult Swim. According to Dino the first season was Swim Guru Mike Lazzo's favourite season and he always wanted the show to come back to that. Allegedly he's not really one for continuity and would prefer it if you could play a season in any order which I guess is an important part of scheduling owing to the fact that when juggling 30+ shows the audience may suddenly pick up a show mid season. This wasn't enough for Dino and his game changer came in Season 3, where the show took a much bleaker tone, taking the adult themes a bit more seriously but giving us a huge slab of back story about the underlying imperfections of this small community. In effect it was the nail in the coffin but a necessary one for the rounding off Orel's character. It still had that dark humour running through it but was, at times, harrowing. For a stop motion animation this is simply amazing to watch. There was definitely no going back after Orel got shot by his drunken dad during the infamous hunting trip but it was a true feast for those of us who'd been following Orel's tale from the beginning.  

Dino has always had his fingers in many proverbial pies and throughout his long career he's written for some of the most successful shows in the States from Conan O'Brien and The Ben Stiller Show to David Letterman and Saturday Night Live. Most recently he's been spotted at NBC's 'Community' where he plays a middle-aged community college student,  Alex “Star Burns” Osbourne. If the testament to a character's success is being immortalised with a knock off t-shirt on Zazzle.com, then Dino has truly arrived.

But back to the Swim stuff and you may have noticed Dino's name amongst the credits of some very familiar shows, take Tom Goes To The Mayor for example. The weird thing is he says he didn't actually do anything on this show. The story goes he was called up by producer Bob Odenkirk to work on the show and was taken on in a kind of consultancy role where they would phone him if they needed him. Turns out they never phoned him but he got the credit anyway.

He's also the voice of everyone's favourite suicidal bird, Tony Millionaire's Drinky Crow. Now Dino is much more of a writer than he is an actor and did the recording and kind of forgot about it. In fact he was invited to the première of the show and missed it as he got drunk during the day and slept right through it. Needless to say he awoke to several bemused calls wondering where the star of the show got to.

One show you'll certainly see the Stamatopoulos stamp all over is the all new Mary Shelley's Frankenhole, which sees his return to stop motion but with a whole new look. It's suitably spooky in the tradition of those old Hammer horror films and uses paper crafted puppets. In fact all the characters clothes are scanned images of real clothes, carefully constructed onto each gorgeously designed puppet. The re-imagining of the Frankenstein story sees Dr Frankenstein completely conquering death and opening an infinite number of wormholes to different places in time. These 'Frankenholes' allow celebrities and great historical figures to seek the unique services of the Doc. As with Moral Orel before it, the show doesn't shy away from controversy, whether that be reanimating the corpse of Michael Jackson or the strange story of Thomas Jefferson's search for the most perfect black penis that ever lived in order to make him more appealing to his lady slaves. When dealing with risqué subjects the approach is to start heavy and then lighten it up until it crosses over into the right side of that very thin line between tasteful and tasteless. This might account for a few interns and animators walking out on the show during production but that's how Dino rolls and it works. Ten episodes in and the show is finding its sea legs. It's on that perilous journey across the choppy waters of Adult Swim scheduling that has claimed many a fledgling show before its time, but if anyone can get this ship to shore it's Captain Stamatopoulos and his merry band of animators. Garrr!

What's that? You want a few more Dino facts? Well okay, we've got time for just a couple.

-        Ever wondered who did the voice of that little girl in the wheelchair at the end of every show (Fragical productions)? Well that's none other than Dino's daughter Tigger. She also does the voice of Igor in Frankenhole and that's pretty damn cool in my book.

-        Dino fully supports the campaign to keep the UK's Bravo channel on the air as it's the only channel outside the US to ever show Moral Orel.

Mary Shelley's Frankenhole is airing on adultswim.co.uk throughout October and November. Moral Orel is returning to the site in December - and Series One will be out on DVD on Dec 6th.