(Continued...)

SWEAT PROJECT The sketch "Let's Go!" on Human Giant

Let's talk about the creative: Did you guys have any standards and practices issues? Let me preface that by saying, when we were doing The State, which, granted, was about 15 years ago, an issue we had with them was that there were certain references we couldn't make. For example, we couldn't make Bob Dylan references because they didn't think their audience knew who Bob Dylan was.
SCHEER: Oh! We have something exactly like that! Yeah. Kurt Cobain. Their audiences don't know who Kurt Cobain is.

"Fucking bait and switch. You come on here, and you're like, 'Oh, I know how it is.' And now we're getting fucked in the ass! Where the fuck is our publicist?"Oh my god! That's really scary. Was there something that you guys loved that didn't make it past standards and practices?
SCHEER: Well, we had one sketch that was ... I mean, we always have this thing where we don't like to talk about sketches because they never come off funny when we describe them. But do you guys want to talk about that "Who Do Ya Gotta Blow" thing?
HUEBEL: Yeah. We had this sketch that we wanted to do called, "Who Do Ya Gotta Blow?" And it was about the expression, you know, "Man, who do ya gotta blow to get into this party?" So it was basically a documentary of where "Who do ya gotta blow?" came from and tracing it back to the first guy who was indeed the guy that you had to blow to get into different parties and stuff like that.

That's very funny.
HUEBEL: So it was sort of a documentary about this guy and his family, and how, to get on the Mayflower, you had to blow this guy and blah blah blah.

That's very funny.
SCHEER: But we couldn't say, "Who do ya gotta blow?" The standards people came back and they were like, "You can say, 'Who's penis do I have to put in my mouth?'" Or we could bleep out ...

But basically you couldn't go with the thing that was key to the joke.
All: Exactly.
ANSARI: I mean, you had to have the expression for the thing to work, like that was the whole joke. But they wouldn't let us say it.
SCHEER: What about you guys? Like what did you guys come up with in standards with Stella?

But that was kind of a negotiation thing where we said, "How can we get it approved?" And we kept giving them suggestions—"Well, what if this, what if that?" So we came up with, "What if he's holding balls?"
SCHEER: What's so funny to me is that watching that as a kid, I remember it now, but I never remember him holding balls in his hands.

Exactly. Because it's so obviously got nothing to do with that. But with the "Who do ya gotta blow?" thing, I'm sure you could have figured out some way so that at least in context, even though it obviously means "give a blow job," standards and practices could have dealt with it.
SCHEER: Yeah. We'd have to have a blow dryer.

Exactly. Another one that we didn't get through was a whole thing about two farmers: One of them has a rooster and the other one has a donkey, and they keep referring to the rooster as a cock and the donkey as an ass. So it's like, "Oh, I love your cock. Your cock is so hot. Yeah, I want to put my cock up against your ass." But it's a donkey and a chicken. But they wouldn't let us do that.
SCHEER: That's hilarious. Did you have more freedom when you were over at Comedy Central?

Yeah. But with Stella, we were making a concerted effort not to be R-rated. But I think that doesn't seem to be the case with you guys.... This actually segues a little bit into one of my big questions for you guys.
SCHEER:Let's have it!