Last fall, the world was shocked and perplexed (and, in some quarters, entertained) by the "2 Girls, 1 Cup" online video, but the men of Human Giant—Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer, and director Jason Woliner—were inspired. It got them thinking about what sort of videos really make it big on the Web, and roused them to write a sketch mocking the viral video phenomenon. The resulting sketch, "Viral Videos," recently hit online, becoming something of a viral phenomenon itself. With their MTV show starting its second season this evening, Radar chatted up the HG boys to learn how they made "Viral Videos," and how you can too!

Step 1 - Take inspiration from real life. "2 Girls, 1 Cup" becomes an Internet phenomenon, bringing online culture to new low for that week. Human Giant takes note.

Step 2 - Explore your subject matter further. The guys wonder what other crazy stuff can be found online. Hanging around the office, they find a video called the Pain Olympics (google it, it's out there; just don't say you weren't warned) where a guy actually cuts off his own penis and then rips off his testicles. Rob remarks how dumb the guy is—"He's cut off his own penis and he's gonna be famous for a week, then he's not going to have a dick anymore." The guys decide this is a character whose story deserves to be told; Rob must play him.

Step 3: Write the idea. The guys sit down and write the sketch in a span of just a few hours. "It was a rare sketch, where we just came up with the idea," says Paul, "and we all just kind of banged it out."

Step 4: Deal with issues of censorship and decency. Despite the video's subject matter, they don't have any problems getting the script past MTV Standards & Practices because it clearly suggests one NOT try cutting off one's penis at home. "I think that's one of those rare cases where 100 percent of Americans would look at this and realize it's a bad idea to take gardening shears to your dick," says Rob. The size and ridiculousness nature of the shears was also helpful in getting the green light. If Rob's character had used say, a medium-sized cleaver to chop of his member, that would have been more problematic.

Step 5: Inspire your actors. Director Jason sends around an online video of some dude just making faces. Aziz studies it carefully and even plagiarizes some of the faces. "It's hard to come up with new ones," says Aziz, "you've got to give credit where credit is due, I did kind of copy some of his faces for the character of Kevin Kriesler."

Step 6: Get in character. Paul had been wanting to do an upbeat talk show character for sometime. He finds inspiration in The Mike and Juliet Show. "I just love their tone," he says, "they make Regis and Kelly Ripa look like 60 Minutes—it's so goofy and over the top." He watches a bunch of clips on their website to prepare for his role as talk show host Jim Freeman.

Step 7: Props and costuming. Wardrobe finds Rob a lovely pair of flesh-toned underwear. The first time they shoot the shot where he cuts off his penis with garden shears, he wears nothing between the underwear and his member as he pretends to make the big cut. He soon realizes that's not the best idea—"I thought, this is retarded, I may actually end up doing this." For subsequent takes, he finds an old, smoky ashtray on set, dumps out its contentsn and stuffs it down his pants to offer some sort of safety buffer. On the final cut of the video, he says "if you look closely, you can see that I have an old ashtray in my pants."

Step 8: Just shoot it. Most of the video is shot on a soundstage in New York against a green screen. Shots of people watching the videos online are taped in the MTV offices. A Brooklyn apartment they often use for shoots serves as the apartment in the video.

Step 9: Don't be afraid to improvise on set. Much of the argument between Rob and Aziz's characters over whose viral video is superior is improvised. "We usually have a script that we write and then on the day we shoot, we sort of throw the script away. We usually get some of the funniest stuff from that," says Rob. Their argument was scripted to be more polite, but, Rob continues, "when we actually did it on the day, we just kept getting angrier and angrier. The funny thing for me that came out is that Paul's character just loves Aziz, and he's so psyched to have him on his show."

Step 10: Pull it together. Jason edits the video together and fuzzes out Rob's nether regions, a lá America's Most Wanted, so that it actually appears as though he chops off his own penis in his video's money shot.

Step 11: Test screenings. The video is first shown one night at the Upright Citizens Brigade and then at a comedy show to raise money for Barack Obama's campaign. It hits the Internet and goes viral, like the very videos that inspired it.

Human Giant's second season premieres tonight on MTV.