“The shows need youth. All of our comics are getting too famous to do the show regularly. The people who are regulars five years ago, a lot of them have moved on and can’t do the show anymore. We can’t really get Jim Gaffigan anymore, we can’t get Nick Swardson anymore.”

: But the people on the CD are famous. Those people were coming out to see those people. I don’t think they need that kind of intimacy with those people.

With a sketch show, it’s “a bunch of people and they’re being funny.” In a way that you can’t really explain it.

For a long time networks just wanted to buy imitations of other shows – i.e. Curb (the Enthusiasm or the Office). The word gets out that “Hey, we want to buy something like that” and every comedy producer just starts dreaming up ideas like that.

Some of the subject matter is a little less weighty. When we were writing for Mr. Show, we were talking about how is this going to stand up to the test of time. Every little piece had to be this brilliant comedy jewel.

There’s two different disks recorded at two different shows. And they’re two very different shows. The San Francisco disk was in front of 450 people and was a real professional show where people did their best stuff. So to some people that’s going to be their favorite disk.

I think one reason why our show is popular too is that we have relationships with all these people. They are our actual friends. We’re not like show promoters where we’re like, (sleazy) “Hey, come on over and do a show.”

So the CD is a great way to get yourself acquainted with some people who in three years, maybe even one year, be really big.

And with this show we’re trying to be a little sillier. We can do a piece like one we wrote the other day called “Ghost Busters Busters”. Where would never do that in a million years on Mr. Show, but somehow on this show it’s silly and stupid and a little more disposable, so we can do something like that.

Anyone can have bad sets. I saw one guy who I really love – I won’t mention his name – gave a set that was really bad. And then one month later did the exact same set on our show and it was great.

It’s really important to keep sponsoring young people so the audience gets used to them and starts enjoying them. They’re the only way your show can keep going, otherwise it’s going to burn out in one or two years. Hopefully you’re creating your headliners of the future.

We’re having so much writing some of the sillier stuff that never would have been on Mr. Show. And that’s not a knock on Mr. Show at all, because it’s my favorite comedy show of all time. Even before I worked on it. It’s just really refreshing to write something so stupid and say, “We gotta do that.”

Comedy Central was really impressed by how quickly we got everyone to sign the releases for the CD. They’ve never seen anything that quick.