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SharePASADENA, Calif. — Former “MADtv” actors Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele have reunited to star in the new half-hour sketch comedy show “Key & Peele.”
Through improv, original characters and celebrity impressions, the pair will look at the oddities of life. Key and Peele talk about their new show and their brand of comedy.
Q: How did this show come together?
Key: I was on a show on CBS that had just been canceled, and Jordan had been working on a pilot, and the pilot didn’t get picked up. So we were both free at the same time, and our manager suggested, he goes, “Why don’t you guys you guys want to work together, do something together?” We jumped at the chance.
Q: Why did you pick this format?
Peele: We’ve done sketch before, but the world doesn’t really know us. And we just felt that there needed to be some kind of connection to introduce us to the world. That’s the way you get on board with something like that, and certainly that’s what worked for (Dave) Chappelle, who is, of course, a hero of ours. We knew we had to be ourselves and be honest about who we are to get that connection with the home audience. Sketch is sort of our craft, and then this new live element.
Q: How is the show put together?
Key: We started writing the sketches first. We just locked ourselves in Jordan’s apartment, much to my wife’s chagrin, and started to write sketches, and then after the pilot was finished, we just started doing shows on stage where we literally just walk on stage and kinda just start talking about stuff that we had thought about before and saw what resonated with the audience.
Peele: We collected a gathering of who we feel are really some of the best sketch writers in the business, and we sat down and we overwrote. We wrote ...
Key: ... about 260 sketches.
Q: What will the sketches be like?
Peele: This is my favorite sketch of the show. It’s the most absurd thing in the world. We have a fictional battle between Bobby McFerrin and Michael Winslow. No words are exchanged in the sketch.
Q: How rude and crude will the show be?
Key: I will say this, and I love this about my partner. We both hate bullying. We hate people being mean in comedy for no reason. Everything we do, we always grind, grind, grind on the game of a scene to try to figure out how to try to get the funny foundation first; usually that we want to appeal universally to everyone, whether you’re from Iceland or Indonesia, and then we’ll put whatever the filter is on top of it. I’ve never understood why be offensive for no reason, or I never understood also a comedian that goes, “If you don’t get it, then whatever.” No. Maybe you’re not funny.
W: How has comedy changed since you were on “MADtv?”
Peele: Obama was the best thing for black nerds everywhere. Finally we had a role model.
Key: Right, exactly. It’s okay for black people to walk down the street saying, “Yeah, ‘Star Trek!’”
Peele: Before Obama, we basically had Urkel.
KEY & PEELE
10:30 p.m. EST Tuesday
Comedy Central
