Santo Cilauro Talks “Pacific Heat”, Those “Archer” Comparisons And A Possible Animated Working Dog Movie

Santo Cilauro, one of the guys behind all your favourite Aussie things, talks to Student Edge about his new animated comedy Pacific Heat.

Production company Working Dog is responsible for an absurd number of excellent local comedies: The Castle. The Dish. All Aussie Adventures. Frontline. Thank God You're Here. Have You Been Paying Attention? Utopia.

We'd keep listing incredible movies and TV shows, but hey, we've all got things to do. Better to keep moving, or we'd be here all day.

Santo Cilauro - also of ongoing SBS sports show Santo, Sam and Ed's Total Football - has been instrumental in bringing all those projects to life, alongside Working Dog mates Rob Sitch, Tom Gleisner and Jane Kennedy.

(He is also, significantly, the alter ego of Molvanian pop star Zlad, which we should never, ever forget.)

Their latest effort is Pacific Heat, an outrageous animated cop show set on the Gold Coast that has inspired comparisons with Archer, given the similarities of their design and subject matter.

Ahead of the show's launch on Foxtel's The Comedy Channel this Sunday, we caught up with Santo to talk about the inspiration for the show, Working Dog's love for police procedurals and why, exactly, Pacific Heat looks so much like Archer.

"The only reason our style is our style is that... it's steeped in reality. It has to look real, otherwise our jokes won't work. We would love to have done a South Park kind-of look where you just have round faces and feet walking, because we could have shot it in about a third of the time."

Santo also teased the prospect of another Working Dog film (even if there's nothing planned just yet).

"We love doing our movies and I can't see us not doing one in the future. It might even be an animated one."

Listen to our chat below.

Pacific Heat debuts on The Comedy Channel this November 27 at 8pm AEST.

Photo: Foxtel.