Brown says he was surprised because Cohen offered such a slick package, including a formal letter on Lampoon stationary and one-page summaries of some of his story ideas.

"It seemed like he was deliberately trying to impress me," Brown says of the stationary.

But Brown was impressed by Cohen's ideas.

"He knew how I like a pitch," Brown says.

Often, according to Brown, people will send in entire scripts, which take too much time to read and aren't flexible when it comes to revisions.

Brown says he and Judge typically prefer a one-page plot summary describing each of the show's four segments and explaining where the jokes are.

Entire scripts are more difficult to adjust to the show.

"It's like trying to sell Judge and myself a house and never selling us a blueprint," Brown says.

When Cohen first met Brown in New York last summer, Brown says he was surprised to see Cohen wearing a yarmulke. And although Brown says Cohen's religion is not a problem, "it seems to be a contradiction."

"This show is not known for its religious and high values," he says. "No one has ever worn a yarmulke into the Beavis and Butthead office before [Cohen]."

In some ways, though, Cohen's dual passions for creativity and religion were bound to cross. Both were present from the time Cohen was a young boy: his parents got him his first typewriter when he was three years old, shortly after the family moved to the Boston area from Israel.

And Cohen's family did not get a television until Cohen was in the second grade, according to the Harvard junior.

Instead of watching television Cohen would read books and write short stories.

The Lure of the Lampy

Cohen came to Harvard with his love of writing very much intact. He read the Lampoon as a student at Boston-area Maimonides High School and wrote on his Harvard application that he wanted to write for the humor magazine. During his first year, he comped both The Crimson and the Lampoon, and is now a Crimson editor and Lampoon ibis, the second-highest position in the organization.