Quotes About Television

As always, we start off with asking, 'What's a good episode?' We don't think about timing, and we don't think about logistics. We just think about what would be good.

In the case of Five-O, I believe it was a combination of many ingredients - timing, chemistry, Hawaii.

There are certain people I'd absolutely love to work with. I was a huge fan of 'Two and a Half Men.' The comedic timing was so perfect on that show. So maybe that show or maybe 'Modern Family.' Both of those shows have great casts.

I think I learned everything about comedy and timing and drama from watching 'The Muppet Show,' which was one of the best shows ever produced.

I love to watch Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai.' The comic timing of the actors is amazing. It makes me laugh endlessly sitting on my sofa.

As in life, so with television: timing is everything.

I started writing when I was trying to be an actor, and I happened to be friends with Tina Fey, who happened to have her show '30 Rock' coming out. So Tina, who happens to be a mentor to me, gave me my slot and hired me.

Networks like Adult Swim allow artists to be artists and allow their vision to come through without a lot of tinkering. I worked on 'Moral Orel' and 'Mary Shelley's Frankenhole,' and they bothered us very little. They very, very seldom came to us and said 'Change this,' or 'You can't do that,' or 'We'd like to see this.'

I was 13 years old when I first heard of the Sultan of Brunei. The absolute ruler of a tiny, oil-rich kingdom in Southeast Asia, Hassanal Bolkiah was the subject of a much-discussed TV documentary by the British filmmaker Alan Whicker in 1992. As a young teenager, sitting in front of the television, I was in awe of this Muslim king.

I grew up in Dutch Harbor, Alaska - a place so tiny, we got only one channel on TV. The high school and middle school had 50 kids total!

The Christmas of 1965 was a Yuletide with a difference at my parents' tiny terrace house in North London: it was the first time my family had been able to see me on television.

Without the BBC, the proliferation of television and radio channels by the private sector would simply result in more and more channels, with tiny audiences, all seeking to do the same thing. The future would be one of fragmentation - fragmentation without either plurality or diversity.

I don't think the Tea Party people are racist, except maybe a tiny portion of them. But there has been a deliberate effort - again, referring to Fox Broadcasting - to inject the race issue into it. They have actually called Obama a racist on television.

'Cheers' was great. They paired me up with Shelley Long on this tiny bar set for the final audition. That was my first really big one, and we just clicked instantly - I still think I got the part because of Shelley.

I always do a little bit of improv. I did some of 'The Office,' a tiny bit in 'Extras,' a bit more in 'Derek.'

I grew up in this tiny town in Rhode Island, and we didn't have cable. We had three TV stations, and one of them would play old movies. That's what I would watch, and I always wanted to be, like, Myrna Loy in 'The Thin Man.'

I was lucky because growing up in tiny little Bailey, North Carolina, we had a satellite dish, so we got WGN. Which meant we got almost every Bulls game.

Working on 'Jekyll' required a lot of concentration and energy. The script is written in a very filmic way most of the time; unusually for television there are a lot of descriptive pages, tiny little fragmented scenes with no dialogue but huge energy.

When I used to work in television, a tip was rather than looking down the barrel of the camera and imagine people watching, which is terrifying, imagine your most discerning friend observing you, and imagine you're just talking to them.

I never went on TV one time during the campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans. I'd never tip my hand to the other side.

If I am at home I'll put 'Tipping Point' on and will always learn something from it.

I really watch reruns of 'The Golden Girls' to get all my style tips.

As a Fox News Channel contributor, I've learned most of the tips over the years: look into the camera like it's a good friend; pull your suit jacket down and sit on it so it doesn't bunch up; and most importantly, never, ever say anything while sitting in that studio that you wouldn't want someone else to hear.

Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.