I wanted to just do a one-act play for 26 minutes, with commercials at the beginning and end. For years, I couldn't get my way. They wanted to interrupt three times.
It crossed our minds early on that the more an audience cared - we were working before, on average, 240, live people. If you could get them caring - the more they cared, the harder they laughed.
We are a country of excess. So it's not the violence, per se, but the exacerbation and constant repetition.
But it also became the experience, or was the experience, of the writers who were attracted to this kind of humor. They're all men or women who come from the same kind of experience in their own lives.
But you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that's not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met.
That's the heart of it: My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.
The American people may not be the best-educated, but they're very wise at heart.
Life goes on pretty much the same way. I've been working on a couple of films on the side. You may see some more. You may even see another television show.
