Comedians Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele on race, comedy

This piece originally aired on October 10, 2014.

Co-stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele just wrapped up the fourth season of their Peabody Award-winning Comedy Central series. While much of their famous material revolves around subjects of race, Peele said they actually enjoy their non-racial work the most.

"That's the beauty of having a sketch show, is you can have a sketch that's about a topical issue, like race and then you can follow it up with something completely silly and fun," Peele said on "CBS This Morning."

The two attribute their ability to make certain jokes to being bi-racial and have grounded their comedy in something they say many black artists use -- improv. A large portion of their work on MADtv, the show where the duo met, utilized that type of comedy still guiding them today.

"Especially with African-American artists, improvisation is a growing form of -- it's a growing art," Peele said. "So many improvisers, we go into hip-hop, freestyle rap, and now we're seeing this movement of adapting this Chicago-style improvisation that Keegan and I fell in love with."

One of their well-known sketches mocks President Obama and how his manner of greeting black guests differs from greeting those who are white. It's no worry for them though -- Obama is a certified fan. The president even asked them to help make a skit about the Affordable Care Act, but they turned him down.

The president, of course, isn't the only one watching. Their popularity prompted a cover story in Entertainment Weekly where Peele said: "If you can get something to be so stupid, that it's not even smart, it's the smartest kind of comedy."

"You want the person at home to go, 'That's just the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Why would anybody ever do -- I've got to walk it off,'" Key said. "It's because we're improvisers. So a lot of the sketches, the writing has to go out the window and you have to just let us go organically."