south park is a miracle. [ cheers and applause ] t earl 90s the hbo shows start to come into their own. now, then, have i always had these breasts? [ laughter ] a lot of people want freedom, they don t want to go back to the networks, which are saying you can come to us when you ll make more money, but you ll also have content restricted. you can go to cable and have no restrictions. not make as much money but have freedom of expression. almost everybody who works in this medium that s what they want. a lot of this truly you can t get anywhere else. the kind of fantasies is people s imagination. hbo turned to people who said, i can t do that on television, but you can do it on hbo. white people don t trust black people.
the larry sanders show was very unique in that it was very deadpan. and really groundbreaking in its day. i think it made people really go, that s the level of work you may be able to do on a cable network. oz comes on in 97. it s set in this penitentiary. wow, what a strange show that was. in oz sometimes the thing you can t up the are more than the thing us can. hatred, loneliness are more real to me than a shank and a soul. it was jaw-dropingly violent. it was a men s prison. it probably should be. but you know, it kind of announces the idea that hbo is going to get serious about doing scripted dramas.
[ laughter ] that s why they won t vote for no black president. like a black brother will [ bleep ] up the white house. like the grass won t be cut. [ laughter ] dishes. ied up. cousins running through the white house, basketball going on out in the back. and the late 80s, hbo was just gaining ground for series. by the 90s, hbo had started to begin its explosion. when we started doing dream on, one of the things that hbo said to us was it s got to be something that couldn t be on network tv. oi that was shocking for us, even as writers. we were like, oh, my god, we can do are that on tv.
it s finished. it s over. but hbo really in my mind comes to its own in 1999 with the sopranos. woke up this morning got yourself a gun sopranos was one of the shows that was like a benchmark. it changed a lot of things for everybody. throw out the handbook. tony soprano, the lead actor in a drama, he killed a man. we watched him. he took his daughter on a college tour. pretty, huh? yeah. it was just a melding of a guy and a world [ bleep ] you doing? and a behavior that promoted all the feelings that you would have for a guy that you love in a guy that you hate. you know?