Creators Mike Carlo and Jason Alvino, and EP Christy Karacas, veterans of shows like ‘Superjail!,’ ‘King Star King’ and ‘Ballmastrz: 9009’ talk about their new animated comedy featuring a low-level mobster accidentally mutated into a disembodied head with telekinetic powers, and his life and family struggles after getting released from jail.
Frank Vitaliano never knew when to quit while he was ahead.And now that he is just a head, he still doesn’t know when to quit.
It’s a plot fitting of two B-monster-movie-loving Italian boys from Long Island. is a new 2D adult animation from creators Mike Carlo () and Jason Alvino () with Christy Karacas (creator of ) onboard as Executive Producer.Now in production with a premiere targeted for 2026, is an independent animated comedy series about Frank Vitaliano, a low-level mob “associate” who was accidentally mutated into a disembodied head with telekinetic powers during a job gone wrong, and now struggles to get his life back on track after he’s released from prison and returns home to his family and the community he terrorized years ago.Frank is forced to crash with his single-mom sister and becomes a reluctant role model for his dorky nephew - all the while dodging his hard-ass parole officer, juggling his smoke show monster girlfriend, and keeping the local wise guy he’s indebted to off his back.
If Frank can’t make good, it’s back to the can...or worse.Check out a clip, here: “Beefy Frank” Pilot Clip 1: Can You Belief These People? According to Alvino and Carlo, it’s a “Long Island Italian version of ” but with more swearing and a telekinetic mutated head who can turn people inside-out.
AWN chatted with the creators and EP Karacas about the personal family stories that inspired balancing the family feels with horror and humor and received some exclusive, first-look images from the series. Victoria Davis: Jason Alvino: Mike and I are very Italian on both sides.Christy is Greek but that’s close enough.Personally, I think we have better cheese.
The story first started with a sketch Mike showed me of a kid hugging a cranky disembodied monster head.Mike had a general idea about the kid finding the head in the woods and befriending it, but something about that cranky disembodied monster head reminded me of a friend of ours who was in jail.That opened the floodgates, and we started riffing. Mike Carlo: Jay shares my love of horror and things like MAD magazine, and we started talking about how we could shape this up for a series pitch.
We were cracking each other up with stories about our experiences growing up in Italian families on Long Island and started asking questions like, “What if this head came from an Italian family? What if this guy was like your uncle who just got out of jail and had to live in your cousin’s basement?” VD: Christy Karacas: I have been friends with Mike and Jay for years.Mike was also the animation director of both and and we also worked together on so we’re good friends and love working together. Mike and Jay would let me read the scripts and drafts and I’d often chime in with thoughts or suggestions.Eventually they were like “Why don’t you just come on board as an EP?” What attracted me to the project was the authenticity of Mike and Jay’s experience growing up on Long Island, and how they wrote so much of that experience into the characters and world of.
It’s so real, so funny, and has so much heart.Whenever they start sharing their stories with me, I laugh out loud so hard.Their love of old school-B movie horror and monster films is something else we share.
I thought “How has someone made something like this yet in animation?” The audience is there.It’s a no-brainer. VD: JA: What you see now is not very far off from Mike’s original sketch.I think Mike added Frank’s gloriously thick eyebrows when we came up with the Frank Vitaliano “before” image. MC: When the project was in development at a studio we found out we couldn’t use the Frankenstein bolts which he originally had.
So, I gave him ear holes instead.He needed to be a monster who is rough around the edges, but not off-putting.I really like classic cartoons, and I tried to blend some of those sensibilities into him to make him more appealing than the original design.
I felt that would give the character and idea more longevity.It also enabled us to really play into the more ridiculous aspects of the people Frank was based on.VD: JA: There have been no challenges.
Everything has gone smoothly and according to plan.We are well-fed and happy all the time with tons of disposable income.I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t make cartoons.
VD: MC: I wish this were true.But aside from the usual, there were two main challenges in my opinion.Finding the structure and character of who these people are, how they react and interact with one another, and how the art supports that was the first challenge.
Then there was the business side.The landscape of the industry was rapidly changing in ways I hadn't seen in 20 years of doing this.We were always figuring out how to keep our vision intact and where we could draw the line at compromise.
VD: JA: One of my favorites involves horse racing.That one is just so fucking funny.I think it’s my favorite piece of writing ever.
There’s another episode about an after-hours gentlemen’s club in a deli that’s actually based on a true story, but that’s all I’ll say about that for now. MC: There’s another where Frank breaks up with his monster girlfriend Donna Vesuvius and starts dating again.Jay read me a first draft over the phone, and I almost peed my pants… I didn’t though. VD: CK: Italian contribution to culture is everywhere, from film and fashion to food and art.Italian Americans are a huge part of American pop culture.
Entertainers like Sinatra, Madonna, Lady Gaga, filmmakers like Scorsese and Coppola, comedians like Ray Romano and Danny DiVito, or celebrity chefs like Lidia and Joe Bastianich or Rachel Ray…the list goes on forever.I’ve barely scratched the surface.Did you know the Jacuzzi family invented the deep-water pump that led to the famous whirlpool bath? Or that Frank Zamboni invented the modern ice resurfacer? If Italian American culture has shown such huge popularity in entertainment from shows like and to , then why not in an animated TV show? JA: Actually, I think Christy might be even Italian than me or Mike.
Talk like that gets you instant membership into the Sons of Italy! VD: JA: That’s a great question.I think, honestly, we’re just writing ourselves and our family and friends into these characters, so the feelings and interactions between characters are authentic.I personally really like the relationship between Frank and his nephew Alex.
It's something we haven’t quite seen before in this type of show and more nuanced than you’d expect. MC: I agree.The relationship with Frank and his nephew is one of my favorite aspects because I can draw from my experiences as a dad, and really relate to how awkward and difficult it is for Frank to be teaching anyone, let alone a kid, how to be a person.I feel like Frank in a lot of ways.
I was kind of an outcast growing up.I also really love his relationship with his girlfriend Donna, who is a Frankenstein-type monster but also a Long Island girl.Their dynamic is something I grew up being around.
Watching that type of couple at a bar is kind of funny already but then blending it with the fact that they’re literally monsters made it really funny.It’s literally all the things that make us who we are. The show felt like home.It was comforting, like watching these shlocky horror movies on VHS with my friends when I was younger. JA: We always approach any story or situation with “What if this was real and happening to us? How would our family and friends react?” I can say with a fair amount of certainty, after a period of adjustment, our family and friends probably wouldn’t give a shit if either of us were mutated into a telekinetic disembodied head “as long as we were happy!” CK: Even before , whenever Mike and I would talk about his Italian family, I was always blown away how similar it sounded to me growing up second generation in my Greek American family.
Our fathers and grandmothers said and did many of the exact same things –their stories of coming from “the old country,” often from a harder life, and then coming here where they sacrificed to give us a better life. I think many values we might associate with a traditional Italian American family are very similar to the values of any first or second generation American family.Putting your family first, having a strong work ethic, often a strong connection to your faith, food and big family gatherings, pride in your heritage, these things are very universal and we all have more in common than we might think and I think these experiences will lead to some really funny, original and heartfelt storytelling with a telekinetic wise-cracking decapitated head. VD: JA: I hope viewers think the show is as funny as we do.Not just “clever-funny” but really honest-to-God .
I feel like the “funny” is the hardest thing to nail in a show like this, and we’re going for it.I want people to actually .And I would it if our fellow Italian American viewers laughed the hardest! MC: I’d also like people to connect with it on a deeper level.
may be rooted in our experiences growing up Italian Long Islanders but dynamics and relationships in the show are so universal I would think it would resonate with everyone, even if they don’t have friends or family members with a criminal past who tried to turn a deli into an afterhours gentlemen’s club.CK: Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.
Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
Q&A: Exploring the Twisted World of Adult Swim’s ‘Superjail!’
Adult Swim to Premiere Season 4 of ‘Superjail!’ June 15
The Saga of ‘Ballmastrz: Rubicon’ - Gaz Digzy, Crayzar, and the Fate of the Earth
‘KING STAR KING!/!/!/’ and ‘Ballmastrz: Rubicon’ Specials Coming to Adult Swim
Adult Swim Debuts 'Ballmastrz: 9009' April 8
JJ Villard Talks the Return of ‘King Star King’
Adult Swim Announces New Online Series ‘King Star King’
