By CHESTER ROBARDS

crobards@tribunemedia.net

Members of the Atlanta-based comedy group Dormtainment are working their ‘boongies’ off to take the Bahamian colloquial term for buttocks international. This mission, of course, is part of a bigger plan to become international comedy sensations.

Half of the comedy sextet was in New Providence this Christmas visiting family. They sat down with Tribune Entertainment to talk about the group’s future plans.

Two of Dormtainment’s members - Chaz and Cameron Miller - are of Bahamian heritage. They brought group member Rome Green on his virgin visit to the island.

Chaz said he and his brother visited their Bahamian father often and still feel a part of the islands, though they grew up in Miami.

Dormtainment also consists of actors Tay Dier, Mike Anthony and Amanuel Richards. They have been building their comedy empire in earnest over the past three years.

The group amassed about 30 million YouTube views just this year, even after losing its first YouTube channel.

“The second YouTube page surpassed the first in one month,” said Rome.

The group has undoubtedly been successful in the US and on their two visits to the Bahamas they found that their fan-base included a large sector of Bahamians. They also have a large base of Jamaican fans, thanks to their popular character ‘Leon’ played by Jamaican native Mike Anthony.

The men, who also perform live stage performances, hope to bring a show to New Providence in 2013.

“We’re trying to come up with a character that is Bahamian-based, but you never want to force anything,” said Chaz.

The group currently has a NSFW (not safe for work) song making the rounds on the internet: “Butt, Booty, Boongy”. Meantime, the men continue to belt out new videos every Sunday, which they proclaim has been no easy task.

They are focused on moving their operation from Atlanta to Los Angeles where they can focus on the next “main goal”, which is television production.

“A lot of people see the final product and think it is so easy, but they don’t realise what goes on behind the scenes,” said Chaz.

“We do everything in-house: from the editing, shooting, concept, audio, motion graphics and visual effects.”

And still, the hardest task for the group remains making people laugh. “Comedy is one of the toughest genres to keep going,” said Cameron.

Chaz said: “We can’t please everybody, so we try to do what we feel is the best and hopefully they’ll embrace it. Even though there’s six of us, there’s people out there that don’t find us funny or have a different sense of humour.”

The group of six have made Dormtainment a full-time job, some members quit fancy massage therapy jobs and visual effects jobs for the rigour of online entertainment.

One sign that they are on the right track was the recognition they got from local fans this Christmas as they visited malls and parties with their family.

“We went to the mall and took 30 pictures in 10 minutes,” said Chaz. “When went downtown and everybody was leaving their posts. It let us know we are on the right track.”

The group dropped its first album ‘Broke and Famous’ on i-tunes early December. The album has skipped around in the top 100 on the charts since then.