“The Mindy Project” on Hulu gave zero fucks this season — but it technically could have.
Away from its former broadcast airwaves, “Mindy” finds itself free from normal Federal Communications Commission constraints, including the government’s strict language laws. While the writers surely mixed in a “s–t” or two over Season 4, they never went full F-bomb for the entire 26 episode-run — which is perhaps surprising, given newfound liberties.
“We want it to feel like the same show, that’s really important to us,” executive producer Matt Warburton explained to TheWrap. “Our audience has lots of younger people, teenagers — we don’t want to make something completely gross.”
“We’d be allowed to if we wanted to — we’re just not interested in that,” he continued. “We want this show to have an appropriate taste-level.”
That might sound odd considering “Mindy” tackled anal sex in an episode when it was actually still on Fox’s airwaves. Though the writers covered their asses — er, bases — pretty smoothly with that one.
Here’s a specific example of how they got around the rules: “There’s a scene where Mindy is — in our script — talking to her butt in a mirror,” Warburton recalled of the buzzy episode from the broadcast days. “And we had to — for Standards purposes — make sure, in the network version, that it could be interpreted that she was just talking to herself in the mirror.
“We wouldn’t have gone the extra mile to make that clear on Hulu, probably,” he added. But still, in general, Warburton says his philosophy is more along the lines of: “You’d rather be really dirty for one second than for 30 minutes, because it’s just too much.”
Plus, they’re still currently taking advantage of sudden creative leeway, even if that doesn’t solely mean foul language or (very) adult circumstances. Warburton told us that they’ve also exploited the new platform a bit by mentioning brand name products, trimming jokes for serious story scenes, and changing format — like the time Danny and Morgan (Ike Barinholtz) spent an entire episode on a road trip. Look for more envelope-pushing when the series returns for Season 5, he teased.