AVC: He's a pro. How old is he?
RH: He's like 10. He's little.
PS: The cool thing is, you always approach people that you really like. And we got turned down by some people too, like Mr. Tom Selleck. He didn't want to be a part of our show. We had a great idea for Tom Selleck, it was gonna be he started his own vanity band—you know, like Jim Belushi has his vanity band, and Russell Crowe has his own vanity band. It was called Magnum and the P.I.s. They all wear mustaches and Hawaiian shirts. And the only song they play is the Magnum P.I. theme, but the end would be like "party tonight." And we sent him that script, and he turned it down 'cause he has to do some editing on his new show.
AA: He watched our pilot, though.
PS: He was interested to a point. But I think the mustaches and the Magnum references pushed him. We went to Alex Trebek, and he rejected us too.
AVC: So you couldn't get any mustached guys.
PS: But I hope Tom Selleck's new show is a success. And I hope our show is a success, and in the second season, he'll want to do it.
JW: After he reads us bash him.
PS: We're not bashing him. We want him. He's awesome. He just turned us down.
AVC: Did you hesitate at all about being on MTV, since it isn't really known for comedy now?
RH: It's certainly not the first place you think of when you think of comedy. But I think we got that great opportunity. What they do have is a gajillion eyeballs of kids that love comedy also.
AA: They were also really psyched about what we had done, and were just ready to go ahead and shoot this. It wasn't like, "Okay, so we'll develop this for a year. You guys can write a script." They're like, "No, we really want you guys to do this." And the other thing is, MTV does have these shows every now and then that are anomalies for the network, like Jackass or Beavis And Butt-head. And there's a chance that something like that could work, you know?
PS: When I was growing up, some of my favorite shows were on MTV, like Beavis And Butt-head and The State and Liquid Television. I think every network goes cyclically, too. Now, it's like The Hills and Laguna Beach. But I watched an hour of Parental Control this morning, and I loved it. Parental Control is amazing.
AVC: There's nothing like getting cuckolded in front of your parents.
PS: I know. Those kids. Man, they're hardcore! I would never think to talk to my girlfriend's parents like that.
JW: MTV is sorta really good at what they do. We put on MTV when we were in L.A. and Next was on. We couldn't turn it off for, like, four hours.
PS: It's unbelievable. There're so many Saturday afternoons I've spent watching MTV.
AA: They repeat the shit out of their programming, too, so hopefully they'll repeat our show a lot so people can catch it.
RH: I think we're just hoping to do something totally different on the channel. We feel like the show we've done is completely different and almost reminiscent of something they used to take a chance on a long time ago, before they became reality-driven. So that's our approach.
AVC: News stories about Human Giant always seem to say you were or are going to become a viral Internet sensation. But would you consider any of the Human Giant videos viral in that way?
AA: I think "The Illusionators" got 500,000 hits. But that doesn't compare to "Ask A Ninja," or Lonelygirl, which get millions, you know? I think it's just lazy to say "Oh, they got a couple of videos that are really big, and now they got a TV show."
JW: It was never "Lazy Sunday." We made "Shutterbugs" and "The Illusionators" to play live at UCB. It wasn't like we made it only because we were on the Internet and then we got the show. These guys have been performing forever in that theater. [Aziz] had already won in Aspen and done really well doing stand-up. I was in video for years. [The Internet] thing is just a really convenient story right now.
AVC: It does seem like you're more a live-performance-to-TV thing than Internet-to-television.
PS: To MTV's credit, they were just very proactive in finding those videos on the Internet after they'd seen us in live performances. One of the executives came to see us when we debuted our 12-minute version of "The Illusionators."
JW: But we gave Tony a DVD. It wasn't like… We weren't discovered on YouTube.
RH: That sort of moniker does make it sound like we're just these guys with a video camera out in, like, Nebraska.
JW: Or the "Numa Numa" guy.
PS: Or that girl who made a bunch of videos and got hired on MADtv. I think we've definitely used the Internet to get our videos out there. But we were never an Internet sensation.
RH: People in the New York comedy scene probably knew who we were.
AA: Me and Rob, when we walk around in this area together, we always get stopped for being the Shutterbugs. It's so crazy. We were in this bar the other night and got stopped. That's crazy. But outside of New York, it's not. It's kind of a niche thing. We go to South By Southwest, where it's a lot of indie-rock people, and the kind of people that are in the underground comedy scene—those people may have seen it, but in general, no.
AVC: What do you hope will happen with the show?
RH: We just really want to get endorsement deals. [Laughs.] With Reebok, with…
JW: I don't know. If we had a second season with a little more time to do it, that would be awesome.
PS: A little more time, a little more money. [Laughs.]
AA: I want people just to see the videos and enjoy them.
JW: We want people to like our stuff. It would be great if people thought of us like, "Oh, that was a good show." I think that's all we want.
AA: Yeah, that's really all it is.
PS: The one cool thing, too, is that I think we all want what's next. Yeah, we'd love to do a second season, but if not that, then, well, how could we do this in a longer form, whether it's a film or something like that? We like working together.
AVC: Do you think your show could possibly usher in the new wave of MTV programming, like all comedy all the time?
JW: [Laughs.] I'd have to say "no" on that.
PS: I think right now the landscape is a bit changed. People don't watch TV any more. It's like, you know, you download stuff. Like our première episode, you can download on Amazon, Xbox, and iTunes, you know? People are now getting TV in all kinds of different ways.
AVC: So you want to become viral?
PS: I want to be very viral.
JW: Yeah, one day we hope to get a short up on YouTube. [Laughs.]
AA: [Laughs.] We just hope that people watch our stuff on the Internet.
RH: That's the final irony, it's like, "This show will air on MTV, but then hopefully get passed around a lot on the Internet." But I think personally, I just want a show that our friends think is funny. If comedy nerds think we're funny, then we did our job.
PS: I want to be proud of our eight episodes, or at least seven of our eight episodes. [Laughs.]
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