Vernon was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas. He studied at CalArts. Vernon worked as a storyboard artist in Ralph Bakshi's "Cool World", "2 Stupid Dogs", "Rocko's Modern Life", "Nightmare Ted" and "Morto the Magician". Vernon joined DreamWorks in 1996 and worked as a storyboard artist again in "Antz". After the success of "Antz", he became one of the writers for "Shrek", where he also made the voice of Gingerbread Man. He also appeared in "Shrek 4-D" and "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas". Conrad also worked in "Shrek 2", which was his first work as a director. The movie was nominated for an Academy Award. Later, he created the voice of Mason the chimpanzee in the popular DreamWorks movies "Madagascar", "", "" and the TV show. He also co-directed the third "Madagascar" movie. Vernon also wrote the original story and directed "Monsters vs. Aliens", where he also created the voice of Insectosaurus. He also produced "The Annoying Orange" TV series.