I had gotten really good at just shutting it all out because you couldn’t possibly get any work done and track all of this trouble you were getting i… - Aaron McGruder

Everyone sits at home with their political opinions. The important thing is making it as funny as possible and knowing when to pull back on the message for the sake of the message...But it can never just [be about the jokes] for me. I'm not like a funny person. I'm not like a comedian. I have things I want to say. ... Bill Maher does find a nice balance between the jokes and tackling the serious issues. So few outlets [offer] those issues in a serious fashion.

Good satire goes beyond the specific point it's trying to make and teaches you how to think critically.

I went in knowing the show couldn't be the strip, aside from the topicality. Those jokes don't "land" at all on television. We didn't re-create the strip on TV -- we wanted to keep the characters the same but make it stand on its own. That's hard -- we certainly didn't get it right away. We struggled with Huey for a long time. Granddad just worked right from the bat. A lot of those Season One episodes were really rough. ... That first season was rough. it almost killed me and everyone around me.