Adam McKay on the set of Step Brothers Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

What's the difference between writing for a short versus SNL or a feature-length film? Do you guys just grab a video camera?
That's exactly what we did! [laughs] We literally just grabbed a camera and ... [For the video short "Green Team"] one of the guys was wearing that recycling shirt in one of the scenes and I said, "Oh, my God!" and we started [saying], "Green team!" and I said, "I'll have a camera show up tomorrow. Let's just go around and shoot 'Green Team.'" We shot it in, like, 45 minutes. That's what I love about it. It's so incredibly instant. That being said though, I'm not sure it's so much different than writing sketch [comedy]. It's the same bone; it's the same muscle in the sense that it's a small idea that kind of has an arc, a rise and a fall to it. So yeah, it's very, very similar to doing sketch [comedy], but the great thing is that you don't have to go through a whole week of production, and go to dress rehearsal, and does it make it [onto the show]. It's just like, "Oh, I had this 'Green Team' idea. Let's shoot it. Ready? Go." [And] it's up on the Internet. That's the fun of it. Just the slightest idea in the world, [you can] put up. If it sucks, people just let it go. It goes away... You don't have to suffer through a silent audience watching it. [laughs] or critics saying, "This sucked!"... We've done some that aren't so good and they just go away.

You've very liberal, an outspoken liberal, but "Green Team" kind of makes fun of people who are environmentalists.
You know what I did? I made the mistake that a lot of liberals make in assuming that environmental causes are so beyond reproach. To me, it's like brushing your teeth, to care about the environment. That's why we chose it. We thought it was such a benign, clearly good thing that the idea of these horrible men doing it would be funny. But you forget that the corporate right has a lot of pull in the media, and they act like there's still some debate about environmentalism. Some people took it as some kind of slam.... Clearly, who doesn't think environmentalism is good? And that's why we thought it was funny. So yeah, I saw on the Huffington Post there were all these things about it, like, "Oh, maybe they're right! Maybe we are messed up!" And I'm like, "No!"

It kind of made fun of them a little... I did unplug my cell phone charger, though.
Oh good! Isn't that a good fact? I didn't know that one.

I have to confess, though, I left the A/C on for my cat.
Did you really? I don't know. You're on a fine line there. [joking] You're right in between animal cruelty and greenhouse gasses... We just got solar power at our house, actually. I'm so excited. We've had 80 percent, and then I'm gonna get the new wind turbine that they have to finish out the last 20 [percent], so I'm excited.

You're a somewhat regular contributor to the Huffington Post. The entry about John McCain calling his wife a foul name kind of blew me away.
I was talking to someone about it the other day. I told them, I said, "You know, this is a true story, that he called his wife [a bleep]," and he was like, "Noooo, no, no!" And I was like, "Yeah, there were like 4 witnesses, and I don't think I've ever heard him deny it." People in his campaign just say [the allegation is] trash but he did it. If Barack Obama did that, forget it. Game over. The whole election is finished... Did you see the follow-up story to it? What happened? Apparently some political activist preacher from Iowa had read my blog, went to a town hall meeting with McCain, and asked him about it. And said [the word], when he asked him, "Is it true you called your wife a [makes a beeping noise]?" And the whole place was like, "AHHHH!" and they carried the guy out. And I read an interview with him, and he was like, "Well, I heard about this from Adam McKay, his post on the Huffington Post," and I was like, "Oh my God, I'm honored that in any way I contributed to that event happening."

You've been a little bit critical of Saturday Night Live in regards to their political coverage. Do you think that Saturday Night Live lost some of its bite?
I feel bad about that. There were some of my friends [writers at SNL] there. I shouldn't have done that. But, uh, yeah, I was frustrated. They went through a stretch where I thought they were really soft on Bush. I couldn't believe it. I mean, it was pretty clear from the get-go that this guy was really destructive and bad news, and most importantly for Saturday Night Live, really funny. And I feel like they went a little soft on him for a stretch. That having been said, you know... I've been on that show, I know how it is. There are a lot of forces at work, you're not always in control. So it kind of came off like a slam of like Tina [Fey] and my friend, and that's not what I meant. I just meant... I guess I was giving Lorne [Michaels] some shit. [laughs] Which he can take.... God knows I love him. But yeah, I thought they really made a mistake on Bush... And eventually they caught up, and eventually Tina started doing rants on it, so they kind of caught up... She had some rants about Bush that were just brilliant. I don't think that criticism applies any more. But at the time, yes.