Nick Kroll & Andrew Goldberg: Big Mouth, Hormone Monsters, Puberty & Enthusiastic Consent
Podcast Transcript Season 2 Episode 37
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Illustration BY Black Women Animate
This week’s guests are Nick Kroll and Andrew Goldberg, who are life-long friends as well as co-creators and writers of the hilarious, Emmy nominated animated Netflix series, Big Mouth, Season 3 of which premieres October 4th. Liz, Nick and Andrew discussed writing comedy about the awkward stages of puberty; Hormone Monsters; enthusiastic consent; andhow to be a woke man in the 21st century.
The following is a transcript of the interview from the episode:
Liz:
All right, so thank you guys both for being with me on the sex ed.
Andrew:
Thank you for having us.
Liz:
You guys have been BFFs since you were six?
Nick:
Yeah, we met when we were in first grade, and we were always friends, and then around middle school, around kind of when Big Mouth takes place, is when we really solidified as real like best friends. And then we went to different high schools after elementary school and then stayed friends in high school and college and after that and then we both ended up in LA and really just had a friendship more than we had any plans or thoughts that we were going to work together.
Andrew:
And we haven't done anything together before this [that wasn’t] Garth skits when we were 14.
Nick:
Yeah, doing like talent shows for like the Purim Talent Show at Solomon Schechter in White Plains.
Andrew:
There's a real mazel.
Nick:
Yeah, it was. But then this show came up and now we've been working together for basically four years almost every day, which is wild.
Andrew:
It is kind of crazy. It's gone by very fast. We have a good time in it's-
Nick:
Yeah. But it could have gotten badly.
Andrew:
Yeah, it could have gotten very badly.
Nick:
It could have been like a nightmare because a lot of people like you people like, "Oh, I worked with my friend." You've been working. Those people usually have been working with their friends consistently throughout to pick up like 25 years after the last comedy spit you did together and then spend six months literally sitting next to each other all day long, every day.
Andrew:
Yeah, I think it's a credit to our friendship. I think it's also credit to our partners, Mark Levin and Jen Flackett. I think without them we might have murdered each other.
Nick:
Yeah, they've been around a little longer than us, they're husband and wife team. They are really the kind of mom and dad of the show. And they've helped us navigate but even still, I mean, I credit them with a ton of things, but even still, like we have really sort of, and I don't know whether that's our history together or just how both of us work or why we ended up being friends is because we were kind of people who could collaborate. I'm not sure.
Andrew:
Yeah, I think it's all those things. I think it's also there's the culture that we have on the show, which is, because we deal with these sensitive personal topics, we have to have a writers room where everybody is kind of very free to tell their stories and their opinions without feeling judged and just kind of having an open place where you're allowed to feel safe and express yourself.
Nick:
Yeah, we hope. That's what we strive for.
Liz:
But that must not have been the case when you were pre adolescent boys. The way I learned sex ed when I was a kid. I used to steal my dad's Playboys and then there were these books. Where Did I Come From? And What's Happening To Me? Do you guys remember those books?
Nick:
I had What's Happening To Me.
Andrew:
Yeah, I didn't really have any of those books. I think, like in the show, Nick's parents were much more forthcoming with him about that stuff. He was also the youngest of four and I was an only child. And my dad did have some, my dad had these Playboys and he kept them in like the crawl space that you get to through the closet in my room, which is basically just like little jerk off Andrew. And I used to check them out and they were from the 70s. It was wild and free.
Liz:
Full bush.
Andrew:
Yeah, really full bush. And his thing, even today, he loves bringing it up but it's so funny, but it's things like you messed him up. You got him out of order, which is like-
Nick:
Perfect.
Andrew:
Yeah. Which is really the embarrassing thing is that he had them in chronological order. I mean, that's like-
Nick:
He was OCD with his master bedroom. Very organized.
Liz:
For people who don't know, Where Do I Come From? and What's Happening To Me? They were these instructional books that parents would give kids about puberty and birth but they were drawings.
Nick:
Yes.
Liz:
And somehow, like illustrations made it more approachable.
Nick:
Yeah and I have a very clear and visceral... we have What's Happening To Me? up in our office, and I have a very visceral memory. I hadn't looked at it for a while and then just looked at it was like, "Oh, wow." These books really were formative for me of like, okay, that's where his penis is at that age, like in that sort of progression from child to adolescent to young man to man to old man, and I remember clocking all of that on men and women and being like, "Where do I fall on all this?" And looking back, it was better than nothing. The other thing we had in sex ed, there was a video that we-
Andrew:
Yeah, that's my most visceral memory, it was called Am I normal?
Nick:
Yeah. And it was a, I think there's a clip of it online somewhere. But we used to just repeat the, "Am I Normal?"
Andrew:
Am I Normal? There was a kid going around asking if he was normal, and one of the stops he made was to the zoo where the zookeeper was talking to him about sex. And I remember like the zookeeper being like, "I see a lot of sex in my job, animal sex of course."
Nick:
Yeah, they like showed animal I can remember they showed animals having sex and they were like, "Look at those two cows right there having sex."
Andrew:
I guess, the idea of like children, you should be going to the zoo and talking to the zookeeper if you have questions about sex.
Nick:
Yeah, it was very weird. But that was about the extent of what at least he and I remember about that.
Liz:
When you came up with the concept for the show, was it always going to be animated? Could there ever be a live action Big Mouth? Because somehow illustrations or animations make it more approachable, safer.
Nick:
We always saw it as animated, Andrew's background he had been at Family Guy for like a decade and so he had a ton of experience in that space. And he Andrew, Mark and Jen came to me with the idea for the show and it made sense immediately. And we very quickly started thinking of like, all right, well, they were having a conversation about like that Andrew should have like a hormone monster. And they were like, well, that's exactly what he should be, he should be a hormone monster. And Andrew called me and was like, we're thinking Andrew should have like a hormone monster. And I was immediately like, [in the voice of the Hormone Monster] touch yourself Andrew.
Andrew:
And I never been taken aback. I was in my son Charlie's room at the time, I remember being like, "Oh my God," that is what he said to me when I was there.
Nick:
But I think as soon as we sort of started to realize that these kids would have these hormone monsters that these disembodied emotional states that were starting to rule these kids decision making and physical occurrences. It became even more clear that animation was the place to do it. Besides the fact that you could have adults voicing the children, which allowed immediately for you to be able to do certain content that you could never do live action. The kids are in puberty in the show, but because it's animation, and it's adult voicing then the kids never have to age and like for us like we both loved The Wonder Years was a really big show for us and was really important.
Liz:
Did you have a crush on Danica McKellar?
Nick:
I did.
Andrew:
No, I was a Becky Slater.
Nick:
Oh, you were?
Andrew:
Who is?
Liz:
Whitney.
Andrew:
Yeah, no, there was Whitney but then there was Becky Slater who was Danica McKellar's actual sister playing within, but I was a Becky Slater person.
Nick:
Yes.
Andrew:
She's doing punch Kevin.
Nick:
Yeah, it was sort of a bossy blonde. You ended up marrying a bossy blonde.
Liz:
Like a little BDSM.
Nick:
And so I think, but the problem with The Wonder Years was Fred Savage is going to hit puberty and like you had two or three seasons of that show before you're out of that formative time so like keeping the animation element you could keep these kids telling these stories and taking our time and not having them age physically age out. We ended up and are slowly aging our kids because we feel like you can't do a show about puberty and not see real transformation happening and growth. But we get to completely do that on our time frame. Not on Fred Savage's biological clock.
Liz:
When does the show set because the kids spend a lot of time exploring IRL situations and not much time looking at smartphones?
Nick:
It's set in current time.
Andrew:
We are doing an arc next season, Season Three with Nick and his phone. And like in Season Three, we're dealing a little more with a little more about what puberty like today, but yet set in modern times. But ideally, we want it to feel a little bit timeless.
Nick:
Partly, because it's based on our experiences, which predate all of this, but also, it's not fun to look at kids looking at their screens all day. And it's an unfortunate reality that kids are in now. But we felt we want the most active stories you can tell. And so there are things in the stories of kids or face timing. Sometimes there's a text or a gift or something like that. But for the most part, we're trying to keep it active unless it's now we start to tell stories specifically about-
Andrew:
Technology.
Nick:
Or Andrew in Season One gets caught up in the porn scape or-
Andrew:
Yeah, which I think that's one of the big things we're talking about porn, like my father's Playboy's in the attic. And that's one of the biggest differences like, specifically with this time of age now is just the preponderance of porn and yet we did that Andrew story where he goes into the kind of internet of porn, and we're doing another story about Jesse seeing porn next season. But that's, I mean, that's certainly one of the ways where technology has really changed what it's like to grow up.
Nick:
The wiring is completely different.
Liz:
But Nick and Andrew on the show are having all these sort of real life intimate moments with each other, which you don't have as much now because of technology, like when you're exploring your sexuality.
Andrew:
Yeah. I think one of the main themes of our show is that idea of talk to each other and open up an interface.
Nick:
Right, I mean, so much of Season Two is kind of dominated by the Shame Wizard, who was voiced by David Thewlis, and we listened and watched a lot of Brene Brown and Brene Brown stuff on Shame and Guilt-
Liz:
And vulnerability.
Nick:
And vulnerability and we took a lot of stuff from her but one of the things specifically was the feeling that the way that you break the cycle of shame is to not keep it inside of you and to share it with others and that through vocalizing it that it diminishes the power of it. And so much of the season culminates in the kids talking to each other about what makes them ashamed. And then through that we see the shame wizards power sort of diminished.
Andrew:
And then like another thing I think that's inspiring us, especially in the upcoming seasons is from a sex ed perspective, the idea of affirmative consent and enthusiastic consent which basically speak to each other and communicate and the idea that it might start off kind of awkward but that it's actually leads to better sex and better relationships.
Nick:
Yeah, I've been, now that we're sort of the show is out and about and people are curious like yourself to talk about it on not unnecessarily just as like, "Oh, it's weird, but tell us about your funny cartoon." And they're like, "Do you have any advice for people." and thinking a lot about enthusiastic consent. We've also spent a lot of time talking to Shafia Zaloom, who's like the consent queen. She’s an amazing sex education educator in the Bay Area, really cool. We talked to her students a bunch, we got inspiration or confirmation on certain episode ideas based on talking to her students about like, rankings, how kids rank each other, lists, all that kind of stuff.
Andrew:
And that's like for girls to see porn is also different from their.
Nick:
Yeah. But one thing she talks a lot about is enthusiastic consent and people like what kind of advice do you have? And specially when I'm talking to boys and girls, but really boys, it's like I say, enthusiastic consent is on all levels useful. Like one it's sexy, it's like from a purely selfish point of view, getting your partner to say they want to do something with you or not getting them but like hearing that your partner wants to do the things that you want to do with them is one very sexy and two like incredibly relieving in a lot of ways of tension and all sudden it becomes this really sexy thing that you're doing with your partner.
Andrew:
And sharing with each other what you like and what feels good. It takes a lot of the mystery and the kind of performance.
Nick:
And also on the other side of that, like post Kavanaugh hearings as everyone's like, "What are our boys supposed to do?" That's like boys are supposed to do is to like find out what's okay to do. And then enjoy doing that or being told that they can't do that. And then there's no gray area. There's no like question as to what happened. What people said. What they thought they interpreted as like, what was okay or not okay. I'm like, I think we've just found that like, it's something that because I think specifically people of our generation are like enthusiastic. We're supposed to talk about everything like yeah, talking about it.
Andrew:
The kids are like yeah, I think teenagers now are like, "Well, this isn't it." I think it's hopefully becoming more and more second nature.
Liz:
But also in like, the kink scene, like talking about it boundaries. All this stuff is totally normal.
Nick:
And it's incredibly clear in certain different scenes of things and we've talked to a bunch of our gay writers and folks about her being like, "Oh, it's much clear like because there are specific things that certain people can or want to do and other people cannot." And it's like, that is talked about, and it helps everyone be very clear about what they're walking into and therefore much more excited and willing to be doing it.
Liz:
How do you two get to this place of being evolved and listening to Brene Brown when I'm sure the way that you grew up, because we don't create spaces in our culture for men and boys in particular to be vulnerable, to explore some of these things, to be intimate, to talk to their friends openly. Like what was that trajectory? Because I mean, I can't imagine at 11 years old you're thinking about some of these things that you're now talking about and imparting on.
Andrew:
I wasn't thinking about it at 35 years old. It can be like the last few years have been a real journey. Like I remember recently my wife being like, "When did you become like more sensitive and woke than me? How did this happen?" But I think it's really through the show that I've kind of been opened up to all these new ideas that I really I hadn't thought about that.
Nick:
I mean, I think look, we both come from very different but very kind of loving homes in their own way. And I think my house there's a lot of conversation. I wouldn't say it was like, what the conversations are that, we're having right now, it was 25 years ago, but I think we had that in like, we have mothers that we love and fathers who were present.
Andrew:
And you had two older sisters who weren't that much older than you.
Nick:
No, I had, I told my sister guided me by, who was like so I have. I had two older sisters, one who was Vanessa, was two years older than me. And both of my sisters - but she and I were so close in age that she was like, "Hey, don't talk to girls like that." Or like, "This is how you treat a girl." Or even like, "If you're going to put your hands on a girl's pants, here's maybe what you want to do." Stuff like that, which was so helpful. But I think now doing the show like Andrew, I think over the last number of years has opened up my eyes as to like, what is going on and what is healthy, what is unhealthy and what we strive to talk about and I don't think... we don't want our kids to learn on the right side of everything.
Nick:
It's not like, but I think what we have learned both about our in our own friendship as adult men that we hope that kids can take is that like communication is such an important part of relieving what is so incredibly hard and difficult about being this age is feeling like deeply alone, and that once you start communicating with your friends about what you're going through that some of that depression, anxiety, shame begins to lift not necessarily all of it, but some of it. And by the way, it's the same for all of us as adults.
Andrew:
It's so funny how often the things we're talking about with the kids, and what they're going through is really just things that we're all still dealing with. It's not stuff that goes away, which is I think, why kids can watch the show and their parents can watch this show.
Nick:
Yeah, because parents are like, adults are like, "Oh, I remember when I was like that," but also like, all the building blocks of both the positive feelings we have around sex and the negative or confusing or tricky things that we have around our sexual identity is formed so intimately in adolescence.
Liz:
Or actually, by the time we're seven. It's formed very, very early because think about-
Andrew:
A six year old and I'm like, "Okay, they're done."
Liz:
But even the way that like you talk to your kids like, a lot of parents they'll say things like, "Don't touch yourself." Instead of maybe like, "That's totally normal and totally cool maybe you don't want to do it in the living room in front of grandma." Or like you guys even it's interesting on the show and you use really formal terminology like mons pubis with kids.
Nick:
There different characters that really Missy has mons pubis, Jay-
Andrew:
Does not.
Liz:
It's kind of funny hearing them both because most kids they learn like wi wi wa wa, they learn like these.
Nick:
Well, there's a term that we use on the show the peena and sweetie.
Andrew:
Oh yeah, coach Steve has the toddler time with the peena and the sweetie.
Nick:
And sweetie.
Liz:
Like he's a virgin.
Nick:
He is, but that's why he-
Andrew:
But that's right here one of our writer's his family called the calls it sweetie.
Nick:
Called that a sweetie.
Andrew:
He was telling us just the other day like how touch they were that that made it intuition.
Nick:
And they were like, not everybody in our area calls it a sweetie. We just call it just like, no, I know. But it is, we are-
Andrew:
It started like my daughter like, we consciously kind of have raised them in that regard differently than how I was brought up like my daughter even like she's eight now I remember two years ago her explaining to me how like her stuffed animals Deary, the deer and Foxy, the fox were in a relationship and they were having sexual intercourse and they weren't using condoms, but it's okay because Deary was on the pill. And I was like, no.
Liz:
Had they been tested? Had they been tested though?
Andrew:
I got the impression that they were both virgins before the relationship because they were pretty new from the box.
Nick:
They didn't get the HPV vaccine. My sister Vanessa, the one who is two years older than me, has a program that she's doing called Dynamo Girl in New York mainly and then was coming out here and did a workshop that actually, Andrew-
Andrew:
It was amazing, and my daughter came too.
Nick:
It was about like really workshops for girls in that eight, nine, 10 years old, pre puberty workshops or now puberty workshops because girls are going through puberty younger now than they were. And she really is trying to demystify a lot of the stuff about putting in pads, putting in tampons or talking about their vulvas, talking about what's happening to them deep like taking that like that area down there. It's being like, "No, it's a vagina, it's a vulva." Like let's just talk about it. And how what's happening in these girls bodies and talking to the girls about it and also letting the parents have time to talk about it. And it was really amazing because I went to the workshops she did in LA, and we spent all day thinking and talking about these kids and puberty and stuff and I walked out, one having learned a lot but also seeing these girls sort of burst out of this workshop on a Saturday morning feeling so clearly like less afraid and intimidated and like unashamed of what was happening to their bodies or what was going to happen to their bodies.
Liz:
Because information is power.
Andrew:
Yeah, they were so in command and like, in our room just like that we have writer after writer, women who talk about their first period. And like, I'd say, like half of them had bad experiences. Where they felt like they had hurt themselves.
Nick:
Or women in the room being like-
Andrew:
How embarrassed to tell anybody.
Nick:
Yeah, or just like women now being like, I have just started not hiding a tampon in my hand when I go to the bathroom or like all those kinds of things are like women being like, "I send my son and get tampons at CVS. If you want to be in an M&M, just got to pick up my tampon." And it's like, this thing that feels so revolutionary, so crazy. And it's like now it's like no, this is all happening to all of us. Why not talk about it? Why not address it? And why not take all of this? All of this had it, like shame and fear and intimidation off of it.
Andrew:
When you don't talk about something, the assumption is that there's something wrong with you and it's to be hidden.
Liz:
What age would you let your kids watch the show?
Andrew:
My plan with my family it's something I get asked all the time, people being like, "Hey, can my kids watch your show? Because all their friends are, you asshole?" Our plan is that when they're the age of the kids on the show, they can watch it.
Nick:
Yeah, so when they're like 12 or 13.
Liz:
Do you write it for that audience in mind. Are you writing for old or not?
Andrew:
I don't think we did.
Nick:
We did not.
Andrew:
I remember it was one of the very first days of the room John Mulaney was like, question, like really breaking stories, question, "Who's this show for? Because it's about kids, but I don't think kids can watch it." And I remember having this moment like, "Oh my God, we're making a show for nobody." But I don't think we were writing it with kids in mind. I think we're a little surprised how much it resonated with kids
Nick:
Yeah, we were writing it for ourselves. And we were writing it for what going to show that we would want to watch and hopefully, like maybe college kids would get that we were like, we have like Joe Walsh references to guys like, the Eagles. Like these are not like current references. But when the show came out, we realized kids were watching it. And we are incredibly aware that kids are watching it. And so we while we're not trying to like give lessons, we are very aware of the messages that we're putting out there of how kids could absorb it. And we try to be as responsible to that reality as possible. But we continue to write the show that we think is funny. And hopefully kids will get it but I think what we found was kids were kind of starving for stories that felt relevant to them. And I think we know now there's like PEN15 which is great and so.
Andrew:
Yeah, I love it.
Nick:
Funny and smart and again you have these two grown women playing these girls which allows them to say do a lot more stuff, but still it's impressive that it is live action and Bo Burnham's movie Eighth Grade I think it's unbelievably well done as well. And really speaks to the current experience for kids and adolescents and all the awkwardness and that the tricky moments and all the miscommunications and all the stuff that goes into it. I think he handled the material incredibly well.
Andrew:
This is an emotional time of life.
Nick:
Which is why it's so fun to retell stories because the stakes feel so high.
Liz:
I love in PEN15, the pink thong, and then you guys have Jessie and her red bra, which is almost like too much power.
Nick:
Well, it's about like, what is it like for a girl who's now being like, I think I want to be a little sexy. And what is that all of a sudden feel like when you face the realities of that. That men, boys men are looking at you that you were like, "Oh, I wanted to feel sexy for myself. I didn't realize there's going to be like a gaze upon me." Or something, I don't know. I mean, I think the bunch of our women writers spoke about that feeling of like, trying to navigate that.
Andrew:
Yeah, that girls are going too sexy. The red bra episode I remember when we were first trying to figure that out. It was actually a show about the first girl in the class who gets boobs and then it turned into girls are wanting to and then we told that story the next season with Gina Rodriguez character, which is a different story but again, that similar kind of story of this time of age where girls are starting to be seen as sexual beings and how that can be exciting but also very intimidating.
Liz:
Was it mostly female lead writers that episode where they're in the Korean spa?
Nick:
Kelly Glasgow wrote it. And it was inspired by Jen our co creator, she went to the Korean spa with her daughter, and she was just really blown away by the spectrum of bodies and things, how all these different women looked and came in with that idea. And then we sort of broke that out and we sort of will be like, Okay, this is a story about boobs, and it's like, well, okay, now it's getting more specific here but then that episode is about women's bodies and where they're beautiful and I love my body but also that this girl grew boobs and why does that make me feel bad because I have nothing to do with her but the boys are interested in her and my body hasn't changed yet. And the boys are like, "I can't help but like these boobs, I'm sorry. But like, they're amazing. I don't want to mistreat them but I also really want to celebrate them."
Andrew:
And like access.
Nick:
And was like access them. It's just also-
Andrew:
Those are some of the funniest episodes to do. I think when we take a topic and really look at it from all different characters perspectives because in that show, you've got Gina who's getting the boobs and feeling the attention you get Jesse and Missy, who are feeling the lack of the boobs. You've got Andrew and Nick who's super drawn to them and feeling different levels of like, "Who am I? Can I be a good guy, but also be horny?
Nick:
Sex is the central question in the show.
Liz:
Can I be a good guy?
Nick:
Can I be horny and be a good guy?
Liz:
But were you guys asking yourself that question when you were 12 and 13?
Andrew:
Not explicitly but I think I was, I mean, I really do think that there was a part of me as depicted in the show, I was an avid masturbator. And there was like, I think a point where I was like, "Is this okay? Is this wrong? Am I gross? Am I, because I think of myself as a nice person, but is it incompatible with these other feelings I'm having?"
Nick:
Yeah, I mean, I think everybody has that but I think boys have that and men have that and even more so right now because we started writing, we'd written the first two seasons before the Me Too stuff really took hold. It ended up we were covering a lot of that material turned out anyway. But it really was that there is a central question right now for men, I think, which is like, "Can I be horny and be a good guy?"
Liz:
You guys were having that question in your personal life before this?
Nick:
I mean, I think, yeah.
Liz:
Not everyone was having this question, I mean.
Nick:
I was asking that question.
Liz:
It's great that you guys are putting it out there.
Nick:
I don't know if for sure when I was a kid, I don't know if I was explicitly doing that. And I'm sure there were times where I wish I'd asked myself that question more.
Liz:
I think a lot of guys are really afraid right now to be part of the conversation or even admit, I know I get asked that a lot by straight guys. And I think it's great.
Nick:
Which is why, tell us why.
Liz:
Are we allowed to talk to women? How do we talk to women? Is it okay to flirt? Sort of the because, again, we're not creating spaces for men to talk about this stuff. We don't make it okay. We're just condemning men, but not like bringing them into the conversation, which is what I think needs to happen.
Nick:
I agree.
Andrew:
Which you Nick mentioned Shafia Zaloom who's a sex ed teacher up in the Bay Area is amazing that we talked to just about a couple times this season now. One of the things she really talks about in his new book coming out is when she's teaching her kids, her essential thing is teaching kids how to be people of integrity with regard to sex and relationships. Which I think kind of really getting to the core of it, which is like, yeah, you can flirt with women and obviously it's not a black and white area being a person of integrity is obviously very subjective thing but I think it's just about thinking about other people's points of view and how the impact of your actions and even more than the intent, that's what it is.
Nick:
And I think, we keep dropping these things, but Peggy Ornstein who wrote Girls & Sex, which in “Girls Are Horny Too!” is a major inspiration for us, has a new book coming out called Boys & Sex. And Karen Anderson, who is a pediatrician and writer also has a book they kind of I think, I believe Karen is more like adolescent middle school, and Peggy is-
Andrew:
More like teen to college-
Nick:
College stuff, so they sort of are interesting one two punch about boys and sex and talking about a lot of stuff you're talking about of like, we don't make space for boys to be vulnerable, to have these conversations. And also, it's a very tricky thing to acknowledge that, boys at this age have urges and things and they don't exactly have control over them which is me not excusing behavior at all, but just like the realities of like, you see a 14 year old boy or girl and they’re spazzes, like they don't have full control over their bodies in all ways. Which again, does not excuse or condone bad behavior, what I think is happening right now, on some level is a correction. And because that is happening, there might be moments where you're like, "I don't know if I agree with how far this has gone. Or how this conversation is happening."
Nick:
My hope is that this correction leads to a general shift in behavior that then allows everybody to understand the rules a little better than behavior changes on a like a more systematic level. I am concerned that that message isn't always getting absorbed in the way that it's intended. And that it is forcing some people further in a direction that is more extreme because they are reacting so vehemently to what they're being told all the ways that they're being wrong. And simultaneously, men have to know that their actions have impacts and recourse and my little joke about it is like, men after me to be like, "Can't hug a woman anymore? And it's like, "Not the way you're hugging her." You know what I mean? We all know what a hug is. When you hug a friend, and what a hug is like when you hug someone who you're pressing your body against.
Liz:
Do you feel like as a comic, there are certain topics or things that you may have talked about, like 5, 10 years ago that you wouldn't touch now?
Nick:
No, I think you just have to be a little more thoughtful about what you're saying, not only with sexuality, but across the board. It's like, everybody's like, PC culture. I'm like, well, people are more sensitive now. You have to be a little more thoughtful about what you're saying in your logic, whatever your logic is, just has to be a little more bulletproof. You don't have the easy way out anymore. You have to do a little more thinking and a little more work on it. But it's like you can watch Bill Burr and whether you agree with his take on something or not. His logic adds up, you know what I mean? I'm not saying I mean, I think Bill's very funny, and he's saying wild shit. But he's not getting in trouble for it. Because he has thought through an argument that makes sense whether you agree with it or not, that's your call.
Nick:
But like, it's entertaining, and it's an interesting point of view. It's the irresponsible throwaway jokes that don't fly anymore. And that's like, sorry, I got to work a little harder.
Andrew:
I think it's also like when it feels like you're punching down on somebody else defenseless is really where I think, 15, 20 years ago, a lot of comedy I think revolved around that and now it's out of and that's not a bad thing that it's that, but it's not.
Nick:
Too, I think yes, I also simultaneously think this people are incredibly sensitive right now on a level that is like-
Liz:
Cancel culture, out of control.
Nick:
It's tricky. It's really tricky. I'm like it's on us as comics to be smart and have jokes that work and are bulletproof in a lot of ways, and that requires a little more work. And also like it would be nice if everybody wasn't quite as sensitive.
Liz:
How do politics plans like the new season because, I mean, Season Two you have this amazing Planned Parenthood episode - as I told you I worked there, my first job, I love Planned Parenthood. I love the nuance of that episode like when Andrew's mother has a one night stand, gets an abortion and then like, 20 seconds later is having Andrew, it's unbelievable. I mean, is there I'm obviously we've got a lot of stuff going on right now in the US, the abortion mess.
Andrew:
Planned Parenthood was great because the way that came about is Mark and Jen, our partners, were at an event with Planned Parenthood and a bunch of writers and they were kind of saying like, your money's outstanding, we'll always take your money. But what we'd love is for people to tell stories about Planned Parenthood and so we set up a field trip and Sue Dunlap, who runs Planned Parenthood, kind of gave us a tour of a Planned Parenthood office and really what we came away with was just kind of being amazed at the breadth of services they offer and to all different people and that was kind of the idea for that episode is like we make a show about all the different things they do. In this coming season-
Nick:
Well, in this coming season, we did the Valentine's Day, which is sort of come out. And after we started writing those after Me Too that like that, that fall, Seasons One and Two had sort of been written. And then Season Three, the fall like everything went down and we started writing the new year. And then we wrote the Valentine's Day episode, which has a little more charge to it and then Season Three, the first episode.
Andrew:
The first episode of Season Three is going to be called Girls Are Angry Too. And it's extensively a dress code episode but it's really about kind of the gender politics of dress codes.
Nick:
That like girls can't wear this, this, this and this, they can't have this short, this blah, blah, blah. And guys can't wear shirts with squares on it, whatever it is I just want a dress codes, and the girls react by then having a slut walk to prove that they own their bodies and they can dress however they want. But then the slut walk is, the boys are excited by the slut walk. And the girls are like that was not our intention. And it just was our attempt to have this much bigger conversation and start to figure out how to have this conversation about-
Andrew:
And we have a sexual harassment story, which is-
Nick:
I don't want to talk.
Andrew:
Which is one of my favorite.
Nick:
Me Too. Season Three is really the first season that we were writing post Me Too. Season One we wrote before Trump was elected, Season Two was after Trump had inaugurated right as we were writing and then Season Three is post Me Too. And so it's a-
Andrew:
But all these episodes like even like the head push was something that we wrote before the guy who we elected president said he grabbed women by the pussy, but it because it was kind of a timeless story about consent. It still felt timely and like guy town and Season Two is really all about toxic masculinity, which we wrote before Me Too. I think that's ultimate with animation, unless you're doing something like South Park where you're kind of really turning it around super fast with a different type of animation that hand drawn animation. It's hard to be timely. We're always looking for stories that feel timely, but also-
Nick:
And luckily, our consent is timeless.
Liz:
It sucks people think that, people were doing it very differently like 500 years ago, but you can't reinvent the wheel all that much.
Nick:
No, but there's the, we see who drives the wheel.
Liz:
There's new technology and new toys. What are you guys still learning about sex?
Nick:
So much, I mean, Andrew is married.
Andrew:
I am so I know, why am I still learning about sex? I think like I said, hearing and talking about and reading about so much about affirmative consent, I think has changed the way that I even behave in sex with my marriage. I think it's whereas I think communicating seemed like an embarrassing thing. Now like it's kind of like a little bit of a point of pride. I mean, I think that's something that I-
Nick:
I think, as I am not married, but have over the course of the show, been in relationships and single and stuff like that. I've had sort of the ability to process the things that we're doing here and talking about in various relationships. And it's been unbelievably interesting and helpful in general in that, again, we're making the show about ourselves based on ourselves at 13 and it's wild to think about the stuff that happens to you at that age, as you said, even younger, but specifically, I think about the stuff that happened to me at 13 and how that affected me for the next 25 years to still now, where I'm like, wow, I'm still processing those things. I'm still trying to like, come to terms with a lot of that stuff. And I think this show is such an amazing personal exploration. Both specifically because we are looking with a magnifying glass at our behavior and where that behavior is still happening and when how we've changed for the better for the worse and it's a very interesting and thought provoking and hopefully, ultimately useful and healing process.
Liz:
What do you think is the next frontier of sexuality?
Andrew:
I mean, something that we're starting to talk a lot about is gender. And it's something that like, two, three years ago, I think I didn't really think about much at all. And I think that's kind of where the forefront is, in a lot of ways now.
Nick:
We have in Season Three, Ali Wong came and did some episodes but specifically came in as a girl who's pan and so there's that element of it of redefining what their sexual identities are as well as gender and somehow where those things intersect and where they're completely separate.
Andrew:
Well, and also the idea of fluidity and a spectrum versus categories, I think, four or five years ago I think we thought about sexuality and gender much more as you're this and this as opposed to like, there's this and this and everything in between.
Nick:
Like we have, like Jay, Jason Mantzoukas' character who started out as this kid who just fucks pillows, has evolved into this kid in end of Season Two, and then the Valentine's special in Season Three, just really trying to understand his bisexuality.
Andrew:
And that was something that we did not have in mind when we started the show, it was really something that like the character has evolved presented to us, whereas, like we're like, at some point, we're writing Season Two, it was kind of like, "Jay, I think might be fun."
Nick:
Like when he keeps asking, "Is it gay if I cry." And all those things.
Andrew:
He really wants to know.
Nick:
He was really like, oh, he's been asking us what's going on with them. So and we-
Andrew:
Listen to people and they tell you that.
Nick:
We listen to our, but just even that idea of like, a male bisexuality and like, where still culturally, like, I think culturally, we're much more comfortable with female bisexuality or bisexuality coming from a female or female identified and trying to talk about what that story is, what that means, like, what is that? How is it different than for a girl or a guy to be bisexual and all that. But I think gender there's sexual, the fluidity and the spectrum of sexuality and then also gender and how people are identifying. And I think kids now are so far ahead of understanding and acceptance of all the different versions of it then in a way then people our age are because I have like very, very like I think woke. Well, to say woke is very sort of liberal minded progressive people who are around our age. Who are having a really hard time dealing with people's personal identifying.
Liz:
Wait until AI comes in.
Nick:
Oh man, the whole other game, it's coming.
Liz:
We have a whole episode on AI.
Nick:
Really?
Liz:
Yeah, I'm just like down the rabbit hole.
Andrew:
Can you retire from sex?
Liz:
Can you retire from, I think the new frontier of sex is intimacy actually and consciousness. I think we're moving really far away from it and a lot of ways.
Nick:
And it has become exciting taboo.
Liz:
It is because I was like true vulnerability and connection is really being intimate with someone else it's not just like, I don't know which way you're swiping.
Nick:
No, it's true. It's very true. Especially as people become so deeply connected to pornography and non actual human or just like whatever their phones and whether it's pornography or each other, but it's not human connection.
Andrew:
I think again, like that's why enthusiastic consent is so interesting to me because it's the opposite of the kind of performative porn sex.
Nick:
Yeah, or it's like we consent with each other to have performative porn.
Andrew:
Sure.
Nick:
We know it's like, "Let's do that."
Andrew:
But even then you're acknowledging that that's what you're doing.
Nick:
Yeah, exactly. Totally.
Liz:
Thank you guys so much for talking to me.
Nick:
Thank you. Thanks for having us.