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Their names are Backpack and Whisper.
They eat regurgitated deli meat.
They can do a kickline when Lane is singing, but they also consume human flesh.
Lanes character describes them as gay culture.
There was no explanation, she remembers.
She did get some idea once she read parts of the script, originally titledFucking Identical Twins.
Theyre like found pets, she reasons, somewhat uncertainly.
I adopt kittens off the street all the time.
Its like that but sewer rats.
It kind of helped.
How do you invent creatures that are somehow horrifying and cuddly at the same time?
With a lot of love and silicone.
Heres how the process unfolded.
She asked her older brother, Zach, if he wanted to help.
Everyone responded positively and that became a sort of template.
So she swung in the other direction, toward something more lizardy.
It was like a Ninja Turtle, she says.
Like their DNA got spliced with a human.
Thats kind of how Larry was explaining it.
The Sewer Boys couldnt be too lizardlike, though.
We had to dial that back a bit, add some more human features, Zach explains.
That meant experimenting with their teeth.
So then we morphed the two so they were like denture, chiseled-down teeth, Alisha says.
The result was endearing and not scary, and they were cute, and they were goofy looking.
That helped sell the sweetness aspect of them, and I think thats when it really came together.
Designs that looked too much like something out of Jim Hensons workshop were rejected.
And they had to be sort of adorable, like drooling tiny toddlers and babies, Zach explains.
Like,Aw, its so cute.
But its also cute.
Gross, Perfect, and Weirdly Attractive
Heres a fun fact.
The mom sewer creature has six boobs.
That was on the request of Charles himself.
They landed on slimy, and found a silicone material that offered the skin translucency they had in mind.
Theyre, like, weirdly attractive but so gross, Alisha says.
The boys are also hefty: The silicone makes them weigh about 15 pounds each.
The anticipation is almost like Christmas, like, What is it going to be?
What is it going to be?
Everyone is so jazzed, she says.
They got a warm welcoming.
She adds: People on set were entranced by them.
Plus they were better than Jackson and Sharp could have imagined.
The finished product turned out INCREDIBLE, they wrote.
We love our little guys!!!
