I basically did comedy there for about a year, and then moved to New York. If I had it to do over again, I would have booked myself on the road for at least a year.
About 25 years ago, I was in an apartment, and next door, they put on the radio, so I struck the wall with my fist, but they did not put the radio down. I took a tool and banged until I made a hole through the wall. It was like a comedy movie.
Comedy is all about rhythm and context, and there’s all types of comedies, and it’s about finding that right brand, that consistency in tone.
I’ve skewered whites, blacks, Hispanics, Christians, Jews, Muslims, gays, straights, rednecks, addicts, the elderly, and my wife. As a standup comic, it is my job to make sure the majority of people laugh, and I believe that comedy is the last true form of free speech.
Comedy is difficult for an actor. But I think I have a good sense of humor and manage to make people laugh and make them happy.
For me, comedy starts as a spew, a kind of explosion, and then you sculpt it from there, if at all. It comes out of a deeper, darker side. Maybe it comes from anger, because I’m outraged by cruel absurdities, the hypocrisy that exists everywhere, even within yourself, where it’s hardest to see.
I enjoy doing comedy that is why I pursue it. I believe that life is hard enough already and full of drama so I find things that are funny to use as material.
Comedy can do so much more than make you laugh.
I really enjoy comedy. It’s a real challenge.
A lot of people do comedy about India, but they’re not from India. It’s a Kwik-E-Mart perspective. I want to provide a genuine view and maybe one on how we see the West.
Comedy is much more challenging, because you have to have the same level of belief but you have to make people laugh, and that’s definitely a challenge.
I love doing improv. I love comedy. I have always felt this way, even when I was really young.
I was a huge fan of comedy when I was a child.
At those times I got into… I suppose you call it a rut. I used to do comedy, comedy, comedy and I suddenly thought I ought to break away from this somehow.
I was in love with a lot of people, because I was a student of the game of comedy – Carol Burnett, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Don Rickles, Red Foxx, Moms Mabley – who gets no credit, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, George Kirby. I loved them all, and I used to just take a page out of all of them.
I’m doing comedy development at National Lampoon.
All the parts I get offered are character and comedy parts, and I probably wouldn’t get them if I had a different face. So I’m glad I have a comedy face.
It’s funny because I think a lot of it is simply… We’ve never considered ourselves satirists, but because we’re on Comedy Central and because we’re South Park on Comedy Central, we can do any topic we want.
‘Tin Cup’ was great because I loved the comedy aspect of it, so that was good.
I try and write satire that’s well-intentioned. But those intentions have to be hidden. It can’t be completely clear, and that’s what makes it comedy.
I love Benny Hill. He one of my favourites of aaall time. Like, the way Benny did it, he was just amazing. Just seeing how he put songs together and comedy and the timing and the sketches. He was way ahead of his time.
Writing comedy is a superpower.
I always loved comedy but I didn’t start formally until I was in college.
I think the way comedy is represented on screen is it’s either all fart jokes – and it’s just laughter for the sake of laughter – or it’s one of those things where it’s just kind of very preachy, very heavy-handed.
In comedy, when you bomb, especially at The Comedy Store in front of a sold-out house? I think it would have been way worse if I bombed there than losing a UFC fight.
I never like to do parodies. I never do. It’s just not my style of comedy.
Comedy is so subjective. If you trip and fall down, some people will laugh, and some people will say, ‘Oh, physical comedy is so pedestrian.’ Some people look at Three Stooges as lowbrow; some people consider them artists. No one is wrong. It’s just a personal take.
A lot of critics object to what I do, but I got into comedy to make people laugh, and I’ve always worked hard.
Stand-up comedy is something that you have to strive to do, multiple times a night, every night, to be good.
‘Jackass: The Movie’ is great. I think it’s in the tradition of physical comedy, which I’m really interested in. Its relationship to gravity, and how gravity acts on the body.
I have a rule – ‘funny is funny!’ When I write comedy, it’s not my aim to upset people. I will be offensive, edgy and immature, but I will also be very intelligent and relevant. At my shows, there are no holy cows.
When I was nine, we’d take a bus to the seaside. Coming back, we’d take turns entertaining, singing songs and the like. I tried some stand-up comedy. I had a captive audience in that bus. Then I realized I wanted to do more than that.
Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.
Life is tragic comedy, in a way. There is humor.
Comedy is really getting quite popular in South Africa.
For me, comedy is constantly presented as this fake casualness, like a guy just walked on stage going, ‘This crazy thing happened to me the other day.’ And he’s in front of 3000 people, and he’s acting like an everyman, and he’s getting paid so much money.
Especially while television I think is going through some growing pains or is in need of – I think current comedy is a bit, uh, not happening, you know?
Girls are supposed to be feminine and demure. Comedy isn’t about that, so you just have to unlearn it. Certain women are so pretty, they can’t go weird enough to be funny. You have to be willing to be ugly. I’m lucky my face can look so hideous.
Someone once said that to make a regular person laugh, you need to dress a guy up like an old lady and push him down the stairs. To make a comedy writer laugh, you have to push a real old lady down the stairs. I don’t know who that’s attributed to. I think it’s Aristophanes. Or Catherine the Great.
I never consciously got into comedy. It was sort of one of those things where I was a theater student, I was acting, I was doing comedy, I was doing dramatic stuff, so it’s been something that I’ve always done and enjoyed doing and had an instinct to be relatively good at.
There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.
God writes a lot of comedy… the trouble is, he’s stuck with so many bad actors who don’t know how to play funny.
I hate comedy. I don’t even like comedy at all.
I read somewhere that when I go on stage, people realize that they’re not me and they feel better. When I walk off the stage, people know who I really am. I’m not saying it’s great comedy, cool comedy or better comedy – but that’s what I do, and I do it first for myself.
I thought comedy would be the hardest thing I could do, and if I could do that, I could do anything.
I think when you dissect a joke too much, you have ruined whatever there is in comedy.
Comedy and tragedy are two sides of the same coin. A talent in one area might also lead to a predisposition in the other.
There used to be an art form called the ‘comedy of manners.’ Why aren’t comedies of manners made now in this country? The answer is simple. We no longer have manners to speak of.
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.
I think there’s too many gay jokes in comedy and not enough honest explorations of sexuality.
First and foremost, I just want to write comedy.
I’m not making comedy albums. That’s too much effort for one joke.
I’ve never gotten to do romantic comedy like most of the girls. Maybe because I’m fit, people assume that I’m not funny?
The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can’t fake it… try to fake three laughs in an hour – ha ha ha ha ha – they’ll take you away, man. You can’t.
I’ve done comedy most of my career, which I love, but I wanted to expand.
If you want to be an actor, you need to learn how to act first, even in sketch comedy.
It’s always been said that comedy comes mostly out of the dark side anyway.
All people go through moments that are tough, but looking at them through comedy is so fun. You can look at anything in life and say ‘Sure, this is crap, but it’s kinda funny.’
Most of the people I know in comedy are not weird or messed up.
Most comedy is based on getting a laugh at somebody else’s expense. And I find that that’s just a form of bullying in a major way. So I want to be an example that you can be funny and be kind, and make people laugh without hurting somebody else’s feelings.
We’re going to continue to focus on family comedies because that is something that our audience really comes to ABC for. But at the same time, we’re going to push the boundaries of what a family comedy actually means.
From comedy, mythology, and drama to reality show, I have never stopped myself from taking risks.
In tragedy every moment is eternity; in comedy, eternity is a moment.
