A long, hard look at the job of making prosthetic penises for TV and movies

As movies like Jackass Forever and TV shows like American Vandal make clear, our entertainment can be enriched significantly through properly deployed penis-centric humor. When it comes to media that features these genitals outside of graffiti mysteries or sheer, agonizing realism—like the Jason Mantzoukas-voiced animatronic wiener from Pam & Tommy—productions must call on the talents of artisans like Matthew Mungle, prosthetic dick-maker to the stars.

Dazed, spurred on by the wave of faux-penises popping up in shows like And Just Like That …, Euphoria, and Pam & Tommy, recently interviewed Mungle to learn more about his craft.

Through their discussion, we learn that Mungle has worked in the field of prosthetic body parts for a long time, but first got to work on fake male genitalia with a little prop penis for Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay and a pair of drum-ruining nuts for Step Brothers. It was in 2008, with Little Britain USA, that he first worked on faux weenies that were to be used for TV and not just film.

Once he’s been commissioned, Mungle collects reference images and creates with “absolute realism [as] the goal.” He uses oil-based clay and platinum silicone then airbrushes the end result and glues hair onto it. A pre-existing mold goes for “between $850 and $1,200" while a custom job “can cost up to $5,000.” (Productions are often happy to use a pre-made penis because of, as Mungle puts it, “the budgets today.”)

Mungle says a lot of character development can be read into the kind of dicks that productions require for their cast. “Size is all character and story-driven,” he says. “Filmmakers will always give a bigger penis to more manly, virile characters and smaller penises are usually just about the gag factor.”

As for the greater impact of his work, Mungle believes that “if we were all more okay with showing our bodies [then] we’d all just get along better.” He answers a question about whether “we should be shifting our attention towards diverse, real penises …” by saying he’d welcome it—that on-screen nudity “makes people a little bit more comfortable with sexuality” and helps combat the “taboo on everything.”

For a more substantial look at what Mungle’s working with, check out the full interview at Dazed.

[via Boing Boing]

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