Hollywood’s No 1 penis-maker: ‘Chris Hemsworth keeps his next to Thor’s hammer!’
If you’ve been watching any of the major American TV series recently, you may have noticed some new members in the cast. Some notable members. Some lower members. From the animatronic talking todger of Pam & Tommy to the bathroom bugle bared by Harry Goldenblatt in And Just Like That …, plus a whole panoply in the latest season of Euphoria, we seem to have entered a dust storm of dick.
Despite having instances of fullfrontal female nudity on screen since the experimental Dutch TV show Hoepla in 1967, the male equivalent seems to have lagged behind for several decades. This may have been partly caused by so-called obscenity laws, which prohibited the broadcast of an erect penis on national TV. Indeed, it wasn’t until August 2020 that British viewers got their first glimpse of an erection on telly, as part of Channel 4’s documentary Me and My Penis. British viewers have also been treated to glimpses of male nudity, even the odd nubbin, in a range of shows for many years – from War and Peace to Top Boy, from Misfits to Cucumber. Flaccid, yes. Fleeting, yes. But they were there.
Back in 2014, Glyn Pritchard got memorably tasered in the tender parts in Channel 4’s Babylon. Pritchard’s character was caught in a police raid wearing nothing more than a T-shirt (what he laughingly calls a “crop top” when we chat). There were, the crew told him, various ways this could unfold. “They said I could do all the rehearsals, and all the other camera angles, with underpants on,” says Pritchard, who is due to perform in King Lear, in trousers, at London’s Globe this summer. “So I’d only be naked for that one shot. But that made it feel like it would be an occasion – building up to it. So instead, I tried to be naked as much as possible so we all got used to it and it was more comfortable.” Pritchard barks out a laugh. “Obviously, within reason. I wasn’t going for my lunch like that.”
Perhaps what sets the recent American dongs apart is their idiosyncrasy. Even flaccid, the penis in And Just Like That … looked like a demi-baguette, while Pam & Tommy’s soliloquising sausage (inspired by Tommy Lee’s autobiography, in which the Mötley Crüe drummer chats to his penis) is more like something from the Muppet stable than a realistic appendage. Dear reader, it talks.
But who are the people who make this magic happen? As a makeup and special effects artist, Matthew Mungle has been in this line of work for decades, creating quite an impressive number of prosthetic penises. His second job may have been applying Johnny Depp’s makeup every day of the Edward Scissorhands shoot, but he has hit on something of a specialism recently in making realistic, mobile or comic male genitals in everything from Will Ferrell’s Step Brothers to Little Britain USA and Shameless.
“When I get an email or phone call from a producer or director saying they need a penis,” Mungle tells me, “my first questions are: is it cut or not cut, what’s the length and girth, how large are the testicles, and how long are the pubic hairs?” It sounds like a dating profile, I say. Mungle throws back his head in a great laugh. “You have to think about