'The Real Bros of Simi Valley' creators Jimmy Tatro and Christian A Pierce say series is based on real people
‘The Real Bros of Simi Valley’ as the name suggests is an on-the-nose parody of ‘The Real Housewives’ reality TV franchise. Right now in its third season -- the show began on Valentine’s Day -- it is outrageously hilarious and intentionally (and smartly) dumb. And why not, it’s been acted, co-written and directed by Jimmy Tatro of ‘American Vandal’ Season 1 fame.
Tatro and his partner in crime Christian A. Pierce, the show’s executive producer, and co-writer recently joined MEA WorldWide’s (MEAWW) Sam Davidson for a casual chat. The duo spoke about how they first met, how their content has evolved over the years, and even Tatro being confronted by the guy he had based most of his characters on.
Pierce talked about how the two of them went to college together (they even pledged the same fraternity there) and when “those bigger life conversations would happen,” they both realized they wanted to work only with TV and film. “We eventually clicked up and started working on things together. And started taking it very seriously in our sophomore year in 2011… the rest is history,” said Pierce.
“Around sophomore year, I signed with a multi-channel network on YouTube,” said Tatro. “The manager was like ‘You gotta start doing one video a week’… I basically hit Christian, because we had been working together, collaborating… I kinda hit him up and I was like ‘Yo, I actually need you like to be on board’.”
Talking about how their work had evolved, Tatro said that his constant efforts had been towards making it a more professional setting. “Creatively, nothing has really changed too much,” said Tatro. Pierce cut in with, “Creatively, it’s evolved as we’ve grown.”
On the topic of the Facebook Watch web-series, Pierce said, “This is a world that’s definitely been inspired by real people and events we’ve experienced.” He explained that growing up in the same area, they both met similar kinds of people and that those characters turned into caricatures of sorts on their show. “We know these guys and girls. There were jokes that we were already making about these people, and we put it to a new type of page,” said Pierce.
“This guy that I based this stupid college character on, who I hated in college, called me like three years after college. He was around a bunch of people at like 2 am and he was like, ‘Yo, who is the frat guy based on?’” When Tatro admitted to him that it was, in fact, based on him, he supposedly said, “Boom! Suck my d**k” and hung up the phone.