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Thanks to the west.com.au for this article.

A dog suit with attitude

Adults dressed in animal suits are usually associated with children’s programs or wildlife fundraising. But the new SBS comedy series Wilfred featuring a man in a dog suit as the title character is definitely adults only

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Wilfred started life as a short film, winning the people’s choice award at Tropfest in 2002 and the best actor award for dog portrayer Jason Gann.

It has now been fleshed out as an eight-part series, with Adam Zwar reprising his role as Adam, the new boyfriend of Wilfred’s owner Sarah.

Adam thinks he’s in luck when invited home by Sarah after a Powderfinger concert but his joy is short-lived when he gets the third degree from Wilfred, a manipulative and insecure dog who wants to maintain his place as Sarah’s No. 1 companion.

Adam begins to question his sanity after becoming embroiled in psychological warfare with Wilfred, who expects Adam to stay up late watching DVDs, drinking beer, making nachos and smoking marijuana.

Will man and dog bond and learn to live together or will Wilfred force Adam out of Sarah’s life?

Gann and Zwar met at university in Queensland 18 years ago and have also starred in Ten’s comedy series The Wedge, with Gann best known for playing scandal-prone sportsman Mark Wary.

They initially planned to make a Tropfest film about a Dave Graney-like musician but when Gann shaved his head to be in another film, they had to come up with a new idea.

Soon they began improvising the story of a mate who had gone home with a new woman, only to find her dog staring at him like it was questioning his intentions.

“We thought, there’s our short film, let’s write it, so we straight away transcribed it to a script as best as we could remember it,” said Gann. Two months later it was in Tropfest, with the original Tropfest footage living on in the series.

“We shot that the first seven minutes at the beginning of 2002, we shot another 14 minutes in 2005 and we shot the rest of the first episode in 2007 so it was spread out over five years,” said Gann.

“It spans five years that first episode. Adam will point out himself he has lost a bit of hair since then and had to go through fairly rigorous make-up each day when we shot the series.”

Gann has one “good‿ Wilfred suit and a few used for stunts involving water and fire. “They don’t have that same old tattered beat-up look that only comes with years of hard living,” said Gann.

“He’s a fairly generic, grey, depressed dog with a lot of issues and I think the suit reflects that.”

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