I didn’t want to do comedy again. It is way harder when you are doing comedy. You can’t just concentrate on the character and the plot. In comedy, the writers, instead of obsessing about character and plot, obsess about the jokes.
Each week, we might write 500 jokes for ‘Weekend Update,’ and ultimately, we can only do about 10.
Don’t make jokes about food.
All of comedy at some level is trial-and-error, whether it’s a stand-up trying out jokes or a comedy show trying stories.
My wife jokes that any time I want to take a picture of her, it has nothing to do with her – it’s just because the light is really nice. She’s usually right. I definitely am somebody who notices the way the light skips off the floor.
I loved practical jokes. I loved being goofy on the playground, and I loved doing silly cartoons, but I was not this subversive little delinquent. I am an Eagle Scout, after all.
I thought I could see how standup worked. I never thought of being an actor – or anything else, really – but I thought, ‘I can see how you get on stage and tell jokes.’
The best jokes take something awful and make it silly.
We’ve all been the brunt of jokes at times.
Anyone who walks out on stage, whether he’s eight or 80, they’ll go, ‘Oh, Alesha, he’d be good for you.’ I’m the butt of the single jokes.
I never used to tell jokes on stage. Now I’m cutting up jokes all night long.
When I do jokes that maybe are seen as social commentary, I research them to the nth degree. I probably do more research than I do actual joke writing. I want to make sure what I’m saying is correct.
The real problem you get with humour is that you only have so many kinds of jokes within you, and you mine that vein a lot. This isn’t just common to me; it’s anybody who’s funny.
Man, after all my grandma put into me learning the piano, that was a hard day, telling her I was telling jokes for a living.
I never thought, ‘I’m going to learn how to be funny now!,’ and I’m still surprised when other people think I’m funny. I just learned to make jokes as a way of moving through the world. It helps me deal with all sorts of discomfort and boredom.
With Comedy Central, they produced it and did everything – I just had to walk up there and tell the jokes – whereas with Netflix, I was heavily, creatively involved, from the logo to the lighting of the room to selecting the venue to selling the tickets and promoting it.
I don’t want to go and start trying to make jokes in places like India, Tanzania or Iraq. Afghanistan is not a funny place.
If you think of the people who are funny in your life, you’ll note it’s not because they tell jokes, it’s because of their character. If you develop characters, then you’ll know them, and you’ll know how they’ll speak. The comedy will come out of the character.
You can write jokes at any point of the day. Jokes are not that hard to write, or they shouldn’t be when it is literally your job.
I like a naturalism to my dialogue and my comedy. I would rather have a few jokes sail by that might be more subtle than have every single joke hit hard. I would rather the comedy come out of character as opposed to feeling forced. Even if you’re giving some laughs up for it.
When I hit the scene, there was Billy Connolly and Max Boyce. It was all mother-in-law and Irish jokes, and we broke the mould. Now there are thousands of comedians out there, and I don’t think I can be above it all.
Only one in four jokes ever works, and I still can’t predict what people will laugh at.
Comedians who are 22 years old can certainly be funny and clever, and be capable of telling jokes – but are they talking about their favorite TV shows, or a particular brand of shampoo?
As you get older as a comedian and keep doing it, what you actually start to cherish on stage is not the build-up to the jokes, but how comfortable you can be in the silence and the non-laughing parts, and how long you can take the audience without a laugh to then get a huge reaction.
Ninety-nine percent is in the delivery. If you have the right voice and the right delivery, you’re cocky enough, and you pound down on the punch line, you can say anything and make people laugh maybe three times before they realize you’re not telling jokes.
Woody says I can make jokes, but I don’t get them – I’m always looking deeper for the meanings.
People are attracted to entertainment, for sure, or jokes, excitement and romantically heightened stories that might be false, but are still attractive fantasies.
I’m more one of those people you laugh at and not with. I’m not the one with the jokes, I’m the one who falls on her face going up a flight of steps.
I’m a taker in terms of jokes. I love to hear a good joke, but I don’t retain jokes. I’m not a good teller of jokes.
In comedy, I often see so many weird race jokes, and it’s like, there is no racial diversity in your show to even make those race jokes. The problem is that there is no one in the back to say, ‘Hey, that race joke is not really appropriate.’
I always think about my jokes as like I’m driving down a street, trying to go into all the culs-de-sacs along the way. I’m just taking a thoughtful, weird journey.
Jokes apart, I, like many other, am looking for strong and stable government. I don’t want any chaotic political situation where the elected government is being toppled frequently.
I like the idea of using cool cyberpunk stuff to tell really stupid jokes.
I think I have got a very good sense of humour; other people don’t, but I do. I also laugh at my own jokes.
I like to challenge myself not to be negative, because it’s easy to take comedy to a negative place and criticize the outside world. Trying to praise something through comedy or be appreciative and making jokes about it is more challenging than cutting things down.
My father, the practical joker, did not care for practical jokes on himself; he did not encourage the practice in me.
When I watch movies with my kid like ‘Shrek,’ I’m like, ‘Wow, this is pretty funny.’ That’s why I wanted to start doing movies like that – so my kid would laugh at my jokes.
I’m a take-no-prisoners type of comic, and I’m lucky because my fans get me and never have a problem with the politically incorrect themes of my act. But I am continually amazed by how a certain section of our society seems to be so freakin’ sensitive about jokes.
My career actually started in the second grade as class clown. That’s no joke. I was always making people laugh, and it was really to mask a learning disability… When it came time for me to read out loud, I would crack jokes or create a diversion.
I can really stir up a conversation. Every time I go to a meeting or a casting, I try to make it as light and funny as I can. I’m always making really awkward jokes. You have to make life fun and not take it too seriously. I may look like I’m very serious and into my work, but if you knew me, I’m just a jokester.
There are just some things that I don’t think jokes are good for.
We wanted the humor to come from the characters and their world – you go down there to escape the world up here for a while. So when the crew would write jokes that would refer to American TV or culture, I’d just eliminate them because it just seemed odd that SpongeBob would know about it.
Evolution has programmed our brains to find two things particularly interesting, and therefore memorable: jokes and sex – and especially, it seems, jokes about sex.
It’s tough being a dictator, but I’ve always thought it must be tougher being a hanger-on to a dictator. The late nights spent listening to his crazed ranting, the weary rictus grin from smiling at bad jokes, the draining knowledge that one misjudged comment could land you on the chopping block.
When I make a book, I make it for the child and not for the parent – no jokes in it for the parents!
I think more than anything, as a comedian, I grow tired of the unoriginality of ‘crazy cat lady’ jokes. It’s a hacky joke based on an already-played-out stereotype.
I crack jokes and play games and that’s really more my nature than being cold.
When I was younger, I listened to the greats: Winters, Mel and Carl, Nichols and May, Pryor, Carlin, Klein, Berman and lots of Lenny Bruce albums. But once I started doing fairly well, I didn’t want to hear anybody’s jokes or premises.
Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives.
Grace Slick was a total trip to work with. Lots of jokes and opinions. A strident individual and super talented!
There have been some very extreme hecklers in audiences whose bile was so hateful and so meant that it would be a bit frightening to think that all I’m doing is jokes and yet someone hates me that much.
Anything where I get to write a lot of jokes and have a lot of creative control – that’s all I want.
I think the best romantic comedies are hard funny – no soft jokes, but ones that make you, like, guffaw. I also think that they have to make you feel good, ideally, and make you feel warm inside at the end.
Zac Efron is like a brother who’s just goofy and crazy. He plays a lot of practical jokes.
Really, I’m pretty laid-back, always cracking jokes.
