MONDO EXTRAS

JA: There's a lot of Ron coming. It's an all-Ron Tuesday this week ["Truth or Dare"].

H: We're getting Ronned! But in a good way.

JK: Did you tell her about "Eric's POV"?

JA: Yeah, there's a whole episode that takes place in Eric's world.

H: Oh my.

Nick Stoller: It's a pilot for The Eric Show.

H: [Under my breath, in case it's a total bomb] Or That Eric Show.

Joel Madison: Eric and the Copy Guys.

H: People like the copy guys, too. What they as actors have done before really helped their popularity when they came on -- like, "Oh, [Kyle Gass] is the guy from Tenacious D." I do think people found Lizzie hard to relate to. She seemed like kind of a soulless cow. I thought it was sweet [in "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs"] when she talks to Steven about Hal. It made her eminently more likable than the flaky stuff.

JM: That was supposed to be episode four.

JK: [Laughs] And [Shaggy]. It was going to be Steven talking to him.

H: More Shaggy, more Ron. Not that we don't like anyone else, you understand. But they're just so fun to watch when they're on.

JA: Carla always says, "People don't like me on the internet!" I tell her she's supposed to be the nightmare girl Steven falls in love with at school. But as we head into this run of shows, you get to know what her character really is, and she becomes less of a nemesis to Steven.

H: Do you find that you've correctly predicted fan reaction to the show?

JA: We had no idea at all what reaction would be to any of it. No idea what the show would be. Usually when people create a show, they say, "Okay, there's the sarcastic guy, the funny fat guy..." They're the generic types you have seen fifty times before. But there's no precedent for any of these characters, because they're based on the actors, so they play pumped-up version of themselves. We didn't know how anyone would feel about any of it.

KB: The main thing is, we all liked what we were making and liked the characters, and so our fans seem to agree.