It’s not as if Issa Rae doesn’t have a lot on her plate, in between her web-based sitcom, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and the show she recently sold to ABC with Shonda Rhimes’ help, about a female cohost on an internet talk radio show. But in the midst of all this activity, she’s launched a new series, The Michelle Obama Diaries, which features Michelle Obama translating her own thoughts and throwing the kind of shade Luther offers up for President Obama in Key & Peele‘s Anger Translator skits:

The Anger Translator sketch works because it suggests something sort of naughty and delicious about the president that we’d like to be true rather than that we actually believe to be true. It’s fun for the same reason seeing President Obama punch back in a debate is fun: it makes us feel like he’s as angry and as frustrated as we are, that he’s as disgusted by the volume of crazy and lies lofted in his direction.

The Michelle Obama Diaries, on the other hand, plays into an idea we believe to be true of FLOTUS, that she’s tart and awesome and sexy. And instead of providing a wishful sense of escape from the limitations of the man and the role, the series gives us a sense of access to that side of her. This first episode isn’t as sharp as the Anger Translator schtick yet, in part because the idea that Michelle and Barack have sex, for example, doesn’t actually feel like much of a slap back at a stupid or vicious misperception of the couple, or a confirmation of something we’d wish to be true but don’t really believe to be the case. I would, on the other hand, watch the hell out of a First Ladies of Washington, DC show from Rae along the lines of the brilliant Real Housewives of Civil Rights parody from a while back:

I bet the brunches between Hillary and Michelle would make an epic arc to the first season.

When I talked to Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, the stars of the sketch and standup show on Comedy Central that bears their name, in February, they were about to start airing for the first time, and they laid out their approach to everything from code switching, to Christianity, to Michelle Obama. Their second season begins tomorrow, and I checked back in with Key and Peele to talk about how meeting the President has changed their very funny sketches about Luther, Obama’s Anger Translator, what they think Giancarlo Esposito’s performances on Revolution and Breaking Bad mean for our understanding of race in America, and how to nail a potentially offensive joke without getting in trouble. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

As you say in the first episode of the new season, you met the president! What was your conversation with him like? And how has seeing him in person affected the Anger Translator sketches?

Jordan: One of the impresisons we had was that he was just very funny. That little bit you’re talking about, where he took a bottle of water form an aide when he had a cough in his throat, and he checked with the Secret Service jokingly, saying “We trust her?” We couldn’t believe that. He said, “I need Luther…He said to Keegan, I need Luther. I need him”. That was cool.

Keegan: I think also, it was more of a confirmation of things already assumed than it was anything else. I did have an impresison of him that he was more in real life than I expected him to be. He was taller, he was better looking. For as cool as he comes across, there was a very palpable warmth that he has about him that, frankly, I didn’t know that I was expecting. He’s right there, he’s with you, he’s talking to you. He has such a calming energy to him.

Jordan: That little sense of humor we’re talking about. You can tell it sneaks out now and then, even though he knows he needs to be the master and commander and dignified and together, so when it slips out and he says something funny, you can see him regather his posture a little. It felt like we hit [what] he may kind of be thinking on the head…I think he knows he can’t exactly align himself with the sentiments we explore. Whether or not it affects the comedy we do, our take on him has always been based on how we feel and what we feel are the unspoken truths that will get a laugh because they ring true. Nothing’s changed…we do a sketch where I play him back in college when he’s in Occidental College, and we do it as if it was found footage of him smoking weed, and more than smoking weed, but owning the party. And what if he brought his charisma and his people together to organize a party on the Occidental College campus. That was the premise of the scene. We felt a little bit rascally about it, especially having met him, to point out the fun side of Obama when he needs to bring his seriousness to a lot of the issues. It’s something that rings true and it’s funny. And at the end of the day…He brings that gravitas and that sense of American ideals to every little exchange.

Since your first season, FX has started airing Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, and BET has announced the launch of TJ Holmes’ late-night show. I’m curious what you think of this mini-boom in late-night shows built around African-American men, and where you think Key & Peele fits in this new landscape?

Keegan: I’m not aware of these programs. I think probably a lot of it has to do with we have our foot on the throttle right now because we’re coming so close to the premiere.

Jordan: I do think that this is sort of a continuation of the evolution of things from, with Obama as a catalyst, even four years ago. It was very interesting, the way African-Americans have been in culture in general. Sidney Poitier back in the day…When I was growing up, there was Denzel Washington, and the idea of a black president came around, Morgan Freeman was cast as a president all of a sudden. The ideas of African-Americans as a leading man has sort of conjealed. What’s fascinating to me is these characters like Giancarlo Esposito, his character in Revolution seems kind of allegorical to Obama. They’re trying to do that somehow. There’s this refined black man who is in charge and somehow mysterious, and he plays it as a good guy.
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One of the most notable things about Obama’s appearance on Late Night to me was the moment when he shouted out Comedy Central’s Key & Peele, specifically their sketches centered around a character called Luther, who is meant to be Obama’s “Anger Translator”:

Obama said his staff had brought it to him, calling it “pretty good stuff.” The original sketch appears here:

When I talked to Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele in February, I asked them about the origins of the Anger Translator sketches. “It was in the height of the second Birther renaissance,” Peele told me. It felt like there were a bunch of things that were not being said that should have been said…We’re all thinking in our heads what we all hope he’s thinking, but he has to maintain his composure. Key added that “I think [the presidency] is a miserable straightjacket for anybody…The president frames things in a much more 18th-century way, “You’re reasonable people and I expect you to look at facts.” He’ll do that through actions as well as words, and that’s threatening to people.”

I think to have Obama acknowledge that desire, what Peele referred to as “a guiltily orgasmic moment” of watching someone speaking for the president express fierce, funny, frothing impatience with the more insane of his critics, is powerful. He’s not satisfying that urge directly, but in a way he’s putting himself on the couch next to us, looking at his public persona from the outside. He can’t give us what we want, and we might not really want it should such an explosion come to pass. But it’s a riff that suggests, despite the birth certificate press conference and the maddening, infinite patience, he is with us in recognizing the ridiculousness.

I’ll have longer thoughts on Game Change, HBO’s adaptation of John Heilmann and Mark Halperin’s 2008 campaign book, closer to the movie’s air date. But one thing that struck me as strange about the movie was that it focuses entirely on John McCain and Sarah Palin, a story that’s both been done to death and is essentially irrelevant: Palin is a PR phenomenon and McCain will never be president. They’ve both returned from whence they came. By contrast, the story of how President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarded each other in the buildup to and during the 2008 campaign, and how they came to be partners rather than enemies, is both directly relevant to ongoing events and a much richer story than that of John McCain’s taking a flyer on his VP selection.

But I wonder if part of the problem is that it would be extremely difficult to cast a credible Obama. Fred Armisen’s impression of the president is laughable. Jordan Peele has Obama’s voice entirely locked down, but he doesn’t particularly look like him. I have no idea if Adrian Lester has the voice, or could figure out how to do it, but he’s got the look, or could pull it off plausibly. I also really like the idea of the main character from Primary Colors, who was responsible for wrangling John Travolta’s Bill Clinton stand-in character, returning to the movies as Obama. There are obvious decent stand-ins for Hillary: Emma Thompson could also step back into those shoes post Primary Colors, not to mention my personal favorite candidate Judith Light. But Obama is tricky—and important—to get right.

The bridge is yours.

-This is a pretty plausible explanation for why CBS does so well.

-Louis C.K. starts a movement.

-Jonny Lee Miller is Sherlock Holmes because why not?

-Chernobyl as horror movie.

-And the streak continues:

If you’re not watching Key & Peele, the half-hour sketch-and-standup show that airs on Comedy Central at 10:30PM on Tuesdays, you’re doing yourself a disservice—particularly if you find yourself missing Chapelle’s Show, Dave Chapelle’s short-lived but legendary exploration of race in America. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, both biracial themselves, have nailed comedy for the age of Obama. It’s not just that Peele has the best Obama impression in the business. In their exploration of code-switching, whether it’s in conversations between black people and white people, men and woman, or people of different classes, Key and Peele have identified an essential element of our changing American landscape. I spoke with both men last week. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

One of the things I’ve found interesting about many of your jokes is the way they explore code-switching. It’s not just that you find the humor in the way that people of color adapt to white society, but a lot of these sketches suggest that white people need to learn to switch codes, too.

Keegan; It’s funny, we were just talking about that recently. I think that this climate we’re in nowadays, code-switching can be thought of as a positive. Being a hybrid is not necessarily something to hide, but something to celebrate. Code-switching, depending on the code, is something that happens in humanity. We shine a light on it in African-American culture more than anything else. But we have Caucasian friends who are from Arkansas or Alabama, and all of sudden, there was a twang explosion. And it’s a phenomenon that exist in the human condition…It’s very Pauline in a way. I’m a big fan of Paul in that regard. It doesn’t matter if you’re Sippian, or Greek, or Hebrew, I’m giong to speak to you where you’re at without judgement…One of our executive producers, he always says, we spend our existence as organisms trying to stay comfortable. And I thought that was very astute…The hardest thing in the world is to step out of our box or let our unique light shine.

You mentioned that you’re a fan of Paul. What are your religious backgrounds?

Keegan: I’m actually quite a spiritual Christian. I’m fascinated by spiritual thought across the board. I was raised a Christian, and I studied a little Buddhism and maybe a dash of Hinduism, but i’m fascinated by Hebraic culture, and how our culture has been informed by Hebraic culture. I’m fascinated by the fact that we practice a Near-Eastern religion in a super-Western society, and how our faith has changed. There are volumes of books written about how if you met a Christian from first-century Palestine, you’d say, um, that’s not a Christian. I was raised Catholic, and then I spent a good deal of time in the Charismatic church, and now I’m in the Disciples of Christ.

Jordan: I am not [religious]. I feel just very devoted to comedy. And I believe that is the way that I’m meant to take in the world, and that’s the way I’m meant to affect the world as well.

Keegan: Do you think that your gift is something that is divine? Or do you think it’s something that just through life and evolution you’ve become the being you are through nurture.

Jordan: I think that when somebody laughs, genuinely laughs, that something is happening within them that is special. I think it’s a revelatory thing. If you can laugh despite yourself, you can get into a giggling fit at a funeral of a loved one for some reason. It’s something that needs to happen for our minds, or our souls, emotionally, it’s a release. it forges the conversation. When something happens in comedy that sort of strikes a chord, [people] talk about it. I’m a big fan of discussion. I think it’s the best thing that we have for ourselves. I think comedy is just a special, special thing. It’s our favorite thing to do in the world.
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