after he stated that the terrorists responsible for the attacks were not cowards — were met with widespread opprobrium and cries of “too soon.” The cast and crew ofknew they had a responsibility to return to the airwaves and send a message to the rest of the country that life was resuming as usual, but many were haunted by the prospect of writing comedy after such a horrific act.
It wasn’t like we were kowtowing to the corridors of power. It was just that first week, [making fun of Bush or Cheney] wasn’t what people were going to enjoy, and it just wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t going to work comedically, it wasn’t going to work culturally.One thing that was so weird to me at the time was there was a decision by the creatives at— I didn’t get to weigh in on this, but — we were not go use the words “terrorism” or “terrorist” on the show. I thought that was Kafka-esque.