Comedian Behind Expletive-Titled TV Show Wanted to Be a Youth Pastor

The man behind ABC’s expletive-titled, in-the-works comedy initially wanted to be a youth pastor.

Nick Thune, who starred in Seth Rogen’s Knocked Up and appeared in comedy Don’t Trust The [Expletive] In Apartment 23, tells LA Weekly he grew up in the church and considered going into the clergy before pursuing a career in comedy.

“People have said [comedy special Good Guy] is both funny and hilarious—which is an excellent combo—but I think it’s also very intimate,” Thune tells LA Weekly. “It covers everything from why I don’t eat weed brownies and the time my dog ate a weed brownie to the time when I got my earrings from Claire’s when I was 16 and me being a youth pastor. I was never a youth pastor, but it gets to what if I was—so if anyone’s hiring youth pastors, take a look and let me know.” 

Thune says when it comes to religion right now, he openly violates Revelation 3:20, and “I also like feel like I’m [a] pretty lukewarm guy when it comes to God sometimes. 

“You know, like, cause it’s pretty easy to be like believe sometimes and I’m like not going to go mess with, like, but [expletive] I’ve been in the Philippines like two times for three weeks at a time with street kids helping them learn how to … sing worship songs and praying with them to accept Jesus in their heart. I’ve kind of been on like every full end of it.”

Next up on Thune’s agenda is ABC’s Holy [Expletive], which will follow the staff of a struggling church and their edgy new pastor as they fight to survive in the modern world, Deadline reports.

“I grew up in the church whether I wanted to be or not,” Thune tells LA Weekly. “There are a lot of different types of people who grow up in a church. I grew up in this lower-middle-class suburban neighborhood near Seattle, and on Wednesday nights my parents would take me to church, and I’d be hanging out with these people who weren’t from my neighborhood and didn’t go to my school. Just seeing that they all had their own little neighborhoods and their own schools, it was like the first little steps to my awareness that there was a bigger world out there.” 

He tells LA Weekly he’ll use this “inside edge” to make Holy [Expletive] successful.

“When I was a counselor [for church summer camps], I got a peek inside the interesting workplace of a church,” Thune says. “People think, ‘Oh, he’s a pastor, he just speaks on Sundays and has the week off,’ but there are actually offices and jobs, and I think it’s a work environment that nobody has really touched. I’ve been working hard to get it out, and after 50 people said no, one person said yes.”

But some Christians in media appear to be livid that Thune would produce such a show. 

Parents Television Council’s Tim Winter is among them, demanding the network change the title.  

“ABC’s prime-time programs have become a home for explicit, vulgar and sexualized language, and this new show’s title is yet more evidence that Disney-owned ABC is going in the wrong direction,” Winter said. 

“Beyond whether the vulgar title would run afoul of the broadcast indecency law, it’s absurd that ABC would even consider exposing children to this explicit program title. While parents may steer their family viewing away from the program itself, the title would appear on program guides, marketing materials and in network promos when families are watching other ABC programming.

“Surely, ABC should have learned from experience that using profanity in a show title won’t ensure a program’s financial success. ABC and CBS have each attempted to use profanity in a program title, and both attempts resulted in advertiser embargoes in only one season of each of those shows,” Winter said. {eoa}