In 1987, I was in Edinburgh doing my first one-man show. I took part in a kickabout with some fellow comedians and tripped over my trousers and heard this cracking sound in my leg. A couple of days later I went into a coma and was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism.
I’ve been trying to find women writers for my staff for a while now and I have three women on my staff and three guys so it’s pretty equal. I don’t know why that is. It’s been the same thing for a while. It’s hard for female comedians to stand out. That’s weird. That’s a shame.
The one thing that’s depressing as a comedian to realize is that rock stars get groupies, and comedians don’t.
When we filmed the premiere episode of ‘United Shades of America,’ it was like we were turning over a rock in the woods. The KKK was not part of the national conversation. They were really just a punchline for comedians when you needed to let the audience know something was really, really, really racist.
It was a decision to work clean. I just prefer to work that way. I have no problem with comedians who don’t work that way. There was a temptation in the early ’70s to reconsider. I decided against it.
Sometimes, when comedians get success, they don’t do as much weird stuff as they normally do.
People, I think, are more interested in being offended than getting to the heart of a situation. And to go after comedians to me is so counterproductive, because comedy is kind of a medicine.
The comic I can now never enjoy again is Bill Cosby. He was truly one of the first comedians I got into.
People say, ‘Oh, you’re doing the job of journalists.’ I think it’s very important to note that we can’t do our job without journalists. Journalists can do their job without late-night comedians. They’d be just fine without us. But we, of course, use their work every day to build our pieces.
I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.
Comedians still make fun of Bill’s out-of-control appetites, but with Hillary, the mockery is about how she lets nothing be out of control.
When it comes to black female comedians, it’s like, if you’re not overweight, are you funny? There’s rules, like, you can’t be skinny and pretty and funny. I’m all three, sorry to break it to you.
I try and avoid the big comics in Edinburgh. You can see them on tour. Edinburgh is all about seeing the smaller comedians.
Because I’m around comedians all the time, in my downtime I tend not to watch comedy. Something the whole family enjoys is ‘You’ve Been Framed!’ It satisfies all of us. It’s universal, and we all laugh a lot.
I have worked with a great many comedians as opposed to comics, although I have worked with comics as well, I make the distinction.
The thing about comedians is, we’re generally pretty smart. So, if we can be smart and funny, that is the victory.
I’m a big fan of comedians not having to apologize for anything. Nowadays it seems comedians are always apologizing for being funny.
All great comedians make me laugh, but people make me laugh more.
Christians have always been fodder for comedians who have tended to portray them as anoraks – slightly clammy, beatifically smiley dullards with barely a personality between them.
I don’t want to offend people and I don’t want to be mean, but social commentary and comedy for me are part and parcel. I think the greatest social activists are comedians.
It’s like cooks don’t watch cooking programmes – I suppose maybe comedians don’t watch comedy shows.
I grew up loving David Letterman and Pee-wee Herman, but as far as live performance comedy, all I knew were the Jerry Seinfeld-type comedians of the world, and that’s what I thought live performance comedy was all about.
I love comedians. They’re my community.
The greatest thing about being a comedian is knowing other comedians. And you get to talk to them. Its the most fun.
I am not a natural show-off. Some of the monster comedians are terrifyingly assured, and I don’t have that, and that’s held me back.
I grew up watching ‘Big Train,’ these collectives of comedians who knew each other, and as a comedy fan you knew who was going out, who were best friends.
The trouble with most comedians who try to do satire is that they are essentially brash, noisy and indelicate people who have to use a sledge hammer to smash a butterfly.
You know, actors say, ‘There are no bad roles, there are only bad actors.’ Well, comedians, because they’re also writers, believe that there are in fact bad roles.
Pakistan hasn’t been cast in the role of… interesting cultural place or, you know, land of great comedians.
Comedy was never a scarcity in Kollywood. Comedians of great calibre have emerged from this land.
I’m labeled a comedic actor, which is awesome. But I love getting the occasional dramatic role, too. Some of your best dramatic actors are ultimately comedians.
No, I had not read any other comedian’s book. Not that I don’t enjoy other comedians; I’m just not a reader.
My heroes – people like Woody Allen – were stand-up comedians. Therefore, I always felt I should give it a go.
I think a lot of comedians make the best dramatic actresses because they have a facility. They’re very vulnerable. They’re very open, like clowns.
Manchester was a fantastic place to go out in. There were 10 clubs with world-class cabaret and comedians. You’d go in and Tom Jones might be singing, or Shirley Bassey or Engelbert Humperdinck.
For me, funny is funny, and what’s unfortunate is these comedians aren’t being allowed to operate in rooms for everybody and that everybody can laugh and say, ‘Okay, I find that person funny, and I don’t just have to find them funny because they look like me.’
Most comedians are borderline psychotic. It’s what makes their work interesting.
You can be good at comedy, which means you’ll be given spots, but beyond that it is luck that pushes you to the next level. There are loads of brilliant comedians who haven’t had the breaks, and plenty of average comedians who have.
Comedians period, in general, have demons, and myself included.
It’s really irritating. Even people who like my work sometimes come up to me and say, ‘I usually don’t like female comedians, but your material is great!’ It makes the job prospect more daunting. Funny is funny, you know?
It seemed to me you could do anything in comics. So I started doing my thing, which is mainly influenced by novelists, stand-up comedians, that sort of thing.
I am trying to work out what my taste is, comedy-wise. I look up to stand up comedians who appear to be telling the truth, but I don’t mind if they are lying.
We’ve all seen comedians look like they’re reaching just a little bit too much for the laugh. This is counterproductive. The conceit of standup is that it is effortless, which makes the prospect of generating new comedy a tricky one: you are trying to be funny without looking like you are trying to be funny.
Comics and actors come from such a wide variety of backgrounds and there’s a theory that all comedians had tortured youths.
People ask me about my influences and I say all the comedians in the 1970s and Dave Allen was a massive influence and a very big influence on a lot of modern comics.
I guess ultimately a lot of comedians just wanna be taken seriously.
But I will say that most comedians are the saddest people I know. That is the biggest paradox to me.
Given the current state of publishing, I think it helps to have a brand name on the cover of your book. Comedians are proven commodities with built-in audiences. They may not have the writing chops of a Dave Eggers, but they’re salacious and funny and self-reflective.
I love coming to New York. I think I’m going to come really often here. I need to – for the show, for the comedy. I want to do the shows here and have a beer and hang out with the comedians.
Having other comedians complimenting my work is the biggest accolade that I can get.
The comedians all finished their acts with a song. They would get a certain amount of money from the song publishers and would use that money to pay the writers. None of them paid very much for their comedy material, but it all added up.
Bits are fake conversations comedians have because they are uncomfortable being vulnerable with other human beings in any way.
I don’t know why, but it seems to be a common story for actors and comedians to have a tendency to be bad students and have difficulty focusing on things.
I’m a comedian. Comedians are supposed to be jaded, cynical, angry people. But I’m not: I’m a silly, silly fun boy.
Canada has been a breeding ground for great comedic actors, sketch artists and stand-up comedians. We grew up with a different perspective on the world.
Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did.
With comedians, you have that understanding that we’re trying to get laughs.
The feeling of being an outsider was a big part of my childhood. I think that helps comedians. That feeling of being an outsider. That desire for a perspective that’s all your own. The idea for me to make stuff myself with my own meaning came from that as well.
After the comedy boom of the ’80s, there was a certain formula that comedians had to do and could do in order to be successful touring comedians, and those were mainly observational comedians who had a very strict structure of what made an act, and I think it was very performance oriented.
