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Season 3 Slang with the Real Sarah Silverman
by Troy Rogers
After two seasons on Comedy Central, Sarah Silverman
returns to her self titled series, The Sarah Silverman
Program, on February 4 at 10:30pm. One of the
best female funny girls on TV, Sarah Silverman
ironically finds direction in her life through
the comedic, self-absorbed misadventures of a
fictional Sarah Silverman who tries to find meaning
in a life with no direction. In the process, Sarah
gives viewers a hilarious rant on her life that
pushes the boundaries of nice-girl comedy.
Leading up to the season three premiere of The Sarah Silverman Program immediately following Important Things With Demetri Martin, we hopped on the line with the real Sarah Silverman to learn more about season three slang, the writing process, the tone of the new season, and what musical numbers we can expect from Sarah when Silverman returns to air.
I really like last season's
episode, Kangamangus. I just wanted to know,
do you have any personal slang words you'd like
to see become popular?
SARAH SILVERMAN: I was just kind of saying something about that. I did send a Twitter that said, 'How about we start going, Oh, that is so pre-Fontaine.' I think he was like a runner, or something. 'You guys, that is so pre-Fontaine.' Okay, let's go with that [laughs].
I was wondering what
kind of subjects are you going to be touching
on this season. Like, what kind of taboo and
controversial subjects? You tend to do that
a lot in your show.
 SILVERMAN:
We do, although I don't think we ever really
go, 'What can we tackle this season?' I think
that would kind of be a slutty way to go about
it. We just continue to still try to just write
stuff that makes us laugh, and when a bunch
of comics are in a room, it takes more to make
us laugh; or less. I mean, aggressively stupid
goes a long way in the room and on the show.
Let's see, I find out I was born with both looks and personality? No, it's weird to not have anything coming back. I'm imagining you all laughing on mute. What else? My imaginary friend from childhood comes back as an adult and we have a lesby affair. Steve and Brian have a great ... this season; their love as well as Jay and Laura; there's some wedding action, and it's very funny; there's a new mayor in town who makes gay sex and brunch illegal. I should just look through the-let's see, I go on "Real Time with Bill Maher."
Let's see, Andy Samberg plays my imaginary friend this year. Ed Asner is in an episode as a Nazi war criminal. It was really, really-let me tell you something about older actors. Ed Asner is about 80, and Murray, who is on our show, Gershams, is 87, and they're such pros that when they're not shooting, they are in their chair sleeping. Just like containing their energy. And we have some really great pictures of elderly Nazi war criminals in set chairs sound asleep.
Billy Crudup plays himself on the show in an episode. I know you didn't ask who guest stars were. Let me think. There's some heavy psychedelic drug-taking in an episode. There's a lot of drugs this season, actually.
Let me think; let me think a ... second. I'm just reacting to nobody. Let me think-oh God, I need to drink this coffee that's in front of me. C'mon Sarah, you're embarrassing yourself.
I try to fight the taboo of child molesters and vans. Oh, my God, my brain, my brain. This is going to look so cool on a transcript; lots of dot, dot, dots, and little breakdowns.
During the writing process,
how much is, 'this is really hilarious' versus
'this is kind of shocking and funny?'
 SILVERMAN:
We never go for shocking if it's not funny to
us. I mean, I think that we go for aggressively
dumb, but I don't know because that has been
what really makes us laugh in the room lately,
like the biggest compliment you can get is,
'That is so ... dumb.'
But shock-I don't think we go like, 'Ooh, that will really shock them.' I mean, does anything shock anyone anymore? I think we kind of hopefully reach beyond that a little bit with our fart jokes, no. But, I think that this season there is actually growth and character arc and stuff. Hopefully still just really dumb and funny and silly. And anything smart you can infer from it from you smart brain is great. I don't know that it's pure shock value. I don't know how long that can last, and maybe that's what you're saying. I feel like we've got a really, really full season.
I noticed the first couple
episodes of this season have more of a cinematic
tone that reminded me a lot of Jesus is Magic.
And I wasn't sure if that was deliberate, or...
SILVERMAN: No, not deliberate, but I think cinematic certainly-I'm glad you guys got some of the episodes. I think the first one, "Proof is in the Penis" feels really cinematic to me. We just haven't been on the air in 14 months, and that kind of kills us in our hearts, but we just really wanted to start with this one because it just felt like for people who are fans of the show, we know you've waited a long time, and here's something that may be kind of special, or worth the wait; that has slow reveals, and just feels maybe like something special. We love that episode.
We can expect big musical
numbers all season long, or is it just the first
couple of episodes?
SILVERMAN: No, no, no. There's musical-it's very uneven. We've just kind of went organically with how it went, so there are a couple episodes that have no music. There's an episode that has, I think the second episode has three songs. It's just kind of however it works with the story and however we're moved when writing the outline.
Usually in the room, someone will just start, get a snag in their brain of a-there's an episode where Steve writes a song that becomes famous called, "I'm glad you hurt your hand because Brian like hurts his hand." That just came from the writer's room of me. Rob Schrab hit his hand, and I was in an extra obnoxious ... mode, and I just started going, "I'm glad you hurt your hand. I'm glad you hurt your hand." Then Rob wrote it into the script.
Since you were nominated
for an Emmy, has that created higher expectations
for yourself, and for the show now?
 SILVERMAN:
Well, we've always had high expectations for
the show. Not in terms of accolades, but we
work on it the same. I think everyone that works
on it has this awesome love for it. I know it's
so corny when people say that, but we really
are like a group of friends. We stand on the
set, not just the cast and the writers, but
the crew. With all our huge, crazy insane gaps
in production, all the crew works their way
back to the show because we just have such an
awesome time. We stand around going, "Oh my
God. We're making show business. Like this is
going to be on TV." It doesn't seem fair to
get to do what we all love so much.
We didn't expect it so much, that none of us knew they were even announcing the Emmy nominees. I just woke up to my alarm clock and looked on my phone, and saw like eight calls, and I thought there was an emergency. It just never occurred to us ever, and then it was so great. We couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it, and we're so happy that anyone, especially the hoity-toits, would appreciate our show as much as we do. It was awesome.
It would have been great to have some sort of momentum with the other award shows in the season, but we weren't eligible for any of the others; Golden Globes or SAG Awards, or any of that stuff because we weren't on the air in 2009, at all. It will have been 14 months since the last time we were on when we air on February 4th. You'd think we were "The Sopranos" or "Lost" with these gaps, and not a 21-1/2 minute show about fart jokes, but we'll take it. We really love it. We love being together and making this super-super dumb, funny, silly show.
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