In addition to rewriting Bollywood songs, you'll even put songs in martial arts movies where there originally weren't any. And the original conceit for the show has the four friends as members of some sort of band. Have you written or performed music before?

Jimbo: Oh yeah, I've been in a ton of punk bands since way back when. I've also been a director for a long time -- commercials, animation, etc. -- and I've always written my own music for whatever I'm doing. It's a lot more fun that way. We love the music aspects. It lets us jump up and down in the office. We have guitars and basses and amps and drums and when we get the disco ball rollin' it gets bananas.

Trevor: I used to do a sketch comedy show on a couple of PAX TV stations and we would write and perform little songs every show for that, but I've never been able to really play anything. I rap some but that's it. Jimbo does all the instrumental stuff.

Jimbo: I will say Trevor is not so much a musician but is great at writing rhymes. Dude's got hella flow.

Why do you think your sketch comedy works when so much other television sketch comedy sucks?

Jimbo: I think our sketch comedy works because we dare to be dumb. I love writing the stupidest thing I can think of. It's like a contest I have with myself. That's not to say I try to write something unintelligent, though. I don't enjoy unintelligence. The cast is easy to write for, too. I can write jokes and scenarios for Aladdin, John, Trev and Morty with my eyes closed. Everybody is funny in their own right, too. Just Aladdin standing next to Trevor is funny. They are so opposite -- we really are all so different it's kooky. I think Trevor and me writing together is a good combination. I tend to write the absurd stuff while Trev writes the darker side. But when we're done with a script there are scenes where we honestly don't know who wrote what joke.

You say other TV sketch comedy sucks. That makes me think, "There's got to be something good out there." I can't think of any, though. I think the best writing on TV now is in animation. "South Park," "The Simpsons."

Trevor: I think we sort of bask in stupidity. We are sort of proud when we've written something incredibly stupid and juvenile, but then every now and then we'll throw in a point or social comment and that just gives the show a very weird feel. It's intentionally stupid and I think that just appeals to some people.

Jimbo: We do think very hard about the writing. We're ruthless with each other, too. If I've written something bad, Trev will hand it back with the words "useless waste of time" on it. Equally, I will write "bag of shit" on his work.

Oh! I know what works for us: dares. We dare each other to do the most stupid stuff on TV. Aladdin dared me to put him in a dress for an episode and that's why I made him not turn into a girl. [In an episode where an animated fairy turns the other main characters into women, the spell simply turns Aladdin into a cross-dresser.] He loved the idea of it. That was until we actually had to go buy him a dress. That's when reality set in. The saleswoman at the dress shop was very pretty and Aladdin wanted to make a move. I picked out dresses I knew Aladdin would look just outrageous in. I had to yell at Aladdin to get him to come out of the dressing room to show the nice lady, who just giggled into her hand. She asked if Aladdin was my boyfriend. I knew he was listening inside the dressing room. I immediately shook my head no and told her "Yes!" Aladdin howled. Needless to say he didn't get a date.

You said that, in your pilot, the show was just you dubbing over the movies. Why did you and Trevor add the other characters and the whole back story with the Shack?

Jimbo: We added the characters because I didn't think just watching the shows dubbed would hold an audience. MST3K had Joel, Mike and the robots to break it all up. I also thought it would be better to have a face connected to the voice that's goofing on the film. I think it helps the senses to make it funnier. Whoa, deep. Also, I just wanted to be on the show. [Laughs] It's true! What a dork. Yeah, I'm a big-ass hambone.

Trevor: We wanted to set up a little more of these characters' world so that we'd have more stuff to play with. And we've changed a lot of it from the beginning of the season! Originally we were going to the same bar in every show and checking in with the goons who torment Morty at the end of each episode, but as we got a couple episodes in, we decided not to limit ourselves with "segments" that we had to do each show. So now the characters leave the studio more, they turn into girls, the world blows up -- it's become kind of like a live-action cartoon show. And I'm sure the show will change and evolve in the next season, we're just doing whatever interests us at the time and seeing where it takes us.

I really wanted to do an episode about Aladdin being stuck in a bathroom stall next to Katie Couric while she is having really painful diarrhea and she's crying and making deals with God and telling Aladdin all of her secrets, like it's her deathbed or something -- then later she tries to hunt Aladdin down and kill him so that her secrets will be safe. So, who knows what the next batch of shows will be like.

Do you think it's odd that two white guys are the ones writing it, when you're making fun of Asian movies on the ImaginAsian channel?

Jimbo: I actually don't think it's odd that we're making fun of Asian movies. To me, that's America. One second generation Latvian [Jimbo], a Taiwanese Canadian [John was born and raised in Ontario], a third-generation Irish guy [Trevor] and one Bengali [Aladdin] goof on bad movies from Asia. What a great mix! That's America.

I actually don't like the term "white guys." I'm proud of my Latvian blood. Latvians are nuts! If you go to France and then Ireland you won't come back thinking they have the same culture. Same as if you went to Japan and India. Big difference. Maybe that viewpoint is also from my growing up in San Francisco in the '60s and '70s. I love everybody, baby. Don't get me wrong, though; I do use the term "white guys," but I use it for predictable consumers who lack culture. [Laughs]

I think we respect the films, too. We would never want to goof on a film that was a classic and endeared by the country of origin. We also don't come from the viewpoint of, "Hey, let's make fun of Asian people!" That would be screwed. For instance, we never use outrageous Asian accents on our characters. That would just be lame, predictable and insulting. We do, however, use outrageous French accents and such, because it's just absurd and silly. The French have a right to be offended at our show! We consciously don't use stereotypes as humor, because to us it's just not funny. Our viewpoint is, "Hey! Let's have some fun with these old B films!"

I'm not that good at talking about my own writing. I don't have much of an ego with all of this. I just want to make some funny TV that no one has ever seen before. I don't really like TV, and I want to make it a better place.

This story has been corrected since it was originally published.

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