03/07/08
Text: Scott Indrisek
In the grand tradition of A.D.D. hilarity like Mr. Show, Human Giant is a manic, oddball celebration of sketch comedy’s potentials. Consider it gloriously highbrow stupidity. Season One—with its emphasis on time travel, violent abductions, accidental gay sex, and amazing magicians—had us LOL’ing like a motherfucker. (It’s available this month on DVD, with all the not-safe-for-TV vulgarity intact). Check out this teaser from the upcoming second season, and then tune in to MTV Tuesdays at 11, starting March 11th. Anthem caught up with the Human Giant trio—Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel, and Paul Scheer—to ask them a few deep questions about the meaning of life.
The first season of Human Giant was full of people getting hatcheted, run over by cars, mauled by German Shepherds, tortured by deranged cell phone salesmen, etceteras. What makes watching extreme violence so damn enjoyable? What’s the most appallingly violent thing that’s ever happened to one of you in real-life—and was it funny?
ROB: We didn't plan on the show being so violent. We just started laughing when we thought about different characters dying in dumb ways. I guess it's kind of like cartoon violence.
I was abducted by guerrillas in Honduras and forced to live in a hole for six years. It was pretty damn funny.
AZIZ: I punched a wall and broke my hand. I then wrote a one man show called "Aziz Ansari Punched a Wall," so it worked out I guess.
PAUL: Many people don't know this but our entire show is written from original ideas sent to us by convicted criminals in maximum security prisons. If we don't incorporate extreme violence into our show, when they get paroled, they will find us and kill us. So please help us.
Your show is no stranger to product placement—you’ve had Crystal Pepsi, Red Bull, Zoomba, Quiznos and many more corporate plugs woven into various skits. Where would you draw the line? And what’s the worst thing you’d do for a million dollars?
AZIZ: Whoa hold on, out of all those only Quiznos was a legit product placement. And that we did because we couldn't believe Quiznos would sponsor something with the phrase "This kill was sponsored by Quiznos" in it [during a skit involving a reality TV show in which innocent victims are murdered on the moon.]
ROB: All the other crap were just products we referenced and made fun of. For some reason, Quiznos was cool with us making fun of them—in fact, they gave us money to do it. That was astounding. The only way we ever do that stuff is if the company is cool with us shitting on it a little bit. Product placement assumes the people watching are retarded and don't realize what's going on. But they do. No one is sitting there at home going, “Oh snap! Those guys on TV just ate Burger King...maybe I'll go get a fucking whopper, myself!”
For a million dollars I would eat a dead body. Is that wrong?
PAUL: Personally, I just like getting the word out about Crystal Pepsi. If enough people watch our show and are inspired to build a time machine, go back in time and bring some Crystal Pepsi to the future, then I've done my job.
