After working on more traditional sitcoms like Family Matters and Yes, Dear, Greg Garcia snagged himself an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 2006 for the pilot episode of My Name Is Earl, the show he created and produces -- and then bitched out God for taking his hair. With Season 3 of Earl winding down, Greg took some time to chat with Television Without Pity about mustaches, Three Dog Night, and Wikipedia accuracy.

TWoP: Let's start from the beginning, because I've recently rewatched the first season on DVD, and watched the features, and it seems to me that Earl was really well received on all levels, you know, from the producers to the networks to the audience, right from the beginning. Was that the case?

Greg: Yeah, we were lucky with that. Everybody seemed to enjoy what we were doing, and, uh, you know, you don't always have that. Sometimes you get the audience, but you don't get the critics. I've been in that situation. Other times you get the critics, and you don't get the audience. And, yeah, right off the bat there, we seemed to be pleasing everybody.

TWoP: The sense that I got was that that was a surprise to, you know, you guys as well as the actors. The comments that a lot of the actors made upon reading the script were, "Well, this is fantastic, but it's never going to fly on TV."

Greg: [laughs] I guess some people felt that it was just, I guess, in some people's opinion, it was just a little too different and a little too odd, perhaps, to be on NBC. But, you know, NBC, to their credit. were in the mood to take a chance on something, and believe in us, and I think that once they saw the finished product, they were thrilled with it.

TWoP: It's always interesting to me -- I mean everybody knows that network suits have a lot to say and like to give notes about the shows that they're working on, and I was interested in learning some of the problems that they had with My Name Is Earl before it went on the air. Like one of the things I found hilarious was that I guess Jason Lee's mustache was a big deal, and it was a last-minute decision where they said, "Yeah, OK, I guess you can keep the mustache."

Greg: Yeah, I mean there were some people that had some questions about whether or not he should have the mustache, but we knew he should have the mustache. ... I don't subscribe, really, to that whole network suits, whole, you know, "they're all just a pain in the ass and they're going to bother us." I've never had that experience, really. I mean, my experience has always been, you know, everyone's just trying to contribute. And just like, you know, sometimes they'll be good ideas, and sometimes they'll be bad ideas. And a lot of times there are good ideas that come from the studio and the network, and sometimes they're bad ideas. But I have good and bad ideas. And the thing that, I guess, some people don't realize when they get into this job, is you don't have to take the bad ideas. It's still your job to determine what notes you're going to take and what you're going to do. For the most part, you know, they contribute, they tell you what they'd like you to do, but it's your show.