HBO thought Tracey was incredibly talented, and they hired her because they loved what she did. She had a clear vision and a real edgy point of view, and they never said, “You can’t do that on TV.”
But I remember one time when they did get involved. We went away at the beginning of the season for a retreat to come up with ideas for things that we wanted to do during the season. We thought black [people] and white people didn’t talk honestly, that everything was filtered and political correctness was a detriment to real relationships. So we decided to do a show called “Tracey Takes on Black and White.”
HBO looked at it and said, “We don’t want to make it black and white because it sounds hostile.” HBO suggested that we call it “Tracey Takes on Race Relations” because it broadens it to include different cultures. When we first got the note, we weren’t very happy. We thought, “Hey, they’re afraid to do this issue.” But once we changed the name, we realized that they were dead on the money. The sketches that we wrote changed and that made the show more meaningful and a better show-and lots funnier.