They might be Giants

The Internet’s been kind to Human Giant. The sketch group—composed of Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer and director Jason Woliner—had achieved some level of viral fame before the launch of their show’s first season, released on DVD March 4. And when MTV tasked the group with scoring a million hits on the station’s website during last summer’s 24-hour marathon, they did—thus earning a second season starting Tuesday 11. But don’t call them an Internet sensation. Actually, don’t make the mistake we did and ask if they’re the Dane Cook of sketch.

“That’s the best term I’ve ever heard in my life,” laughs Scheer, a regular on VH1’s pop-culture shows. “We’re not a group born out of the Internet—we’ve never had a video reach millions. We’re just a bunch of guys who had some stuff independently and got a bit of play on the Internet.”

Ansari, a popular indie stand-up comic, chimes in: “The way I see it, if we had never put our material on the Internet, we would still have gotten a TV show.”He’s probably right. Before MTV, Human Giant—whose name nods to The Green Mile’s Michael Clarke Duncan—honed its video and live sketches at Crash Test, a weekly comedy showcase hosted by Ansari at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. (Huebel’s an improv alum of that stage.) The material included raw versions of their recurring segments Illusionators (man-on-the-street magicians) and Shutterbugs (agitated agents who represent child actors), with special effects done by Woliner on his home computer. As they amassed a solid cult following, scouts caught wind of their buzz.

On MTV’s dime, Giant’s idea process has remained largely unchanged: Its members pitch sketch ideas to the group, and nobody writes a word until they’re all on board. The same goes for deciding which scripts to shoot and which scenes make the final cut. They continue to work Crash Test audiences to calibrate the funny, and Woliner still churns out most of the graphics. That super-hands-on approach no doubt contributes to Giant’s consistency and charisma.

You’d think that once the boys went corporate, the suits would usurp some creative control—especially given MTV’s recent shaky track record with sketch. But the network has stayed at arm’s length from the group’s inner workings, and, given this is the network that nurtured The State in the early ’90s, that’s a huge show of faith. “Any sketch show that’s created by committee isn’t going to work. Like, finding really funny people, putting them together and having them do somebody else’s ideas,” Scheer says. “Our experience is much more pure.”

That purity paved the way for a stellar 2007 season, which aired April through June. It saw more Illusionators and Shutterbugs (though you’ll have to watch the DVD for the cut line “Call us back when you’re not Asian”), not to mention a host of hilarious, imaginative one-offs—like Ansari getting busted for peeing on a bush and then being sentenced to live as a shrub for a week.

While generating enough solid ideas to fill a season, the boys quickly learned that sketch comedy is a crapshoot. “Any time you’re excited about an idea, that’s a death wish,” Ansari notes. He and Scheer rattle off their dearly departed ideas: Doubles tennis players accidentally bump heads and use their newfound mind-reading power to win game shows; the spirit of a World’s Strongest Man contestant moves furniture (retooled in season two with a dead gay porn star); a group of guys attempt “impossible pickups,” like going after a girl while her boyfriend proposes to her. The latter ended up looking like a beer commercial—it’s hard to gauge how a scene will feel until it’s right there.

“We’ll be on the set at times and just think, Whoa, why are we shooting this? This is not funny,” Ansari says. “You can’t be precious about anything. In any kind of comedy, you want to trim the fat as much as possible.”

Judging by the season-two clips that have found their way onto YouTube—a guy going viral by cutting off his penis and a murder reenactment more gruesome than the enactment—we’re in for a lean feast.

See New York’s Giants Tuesday 11, 10pm on MTV. Get season one on DVD now.