Quotes About Comedy

I'm a huge fan of 'Parks and Rec.'

I did comedy and parody television in the '70s. I was a liberal Democrat, and it was a very heady year.

I see parody as another form of comedy.

Doing a format parody is one of my favorite things to do in comedy.

With parody, you're referencing and sending up a particular genre, and mostly your material is going to be taken out of that genre.

I always considered song parody kind of cheap.

Either I'm in the studio creating something, or I'm on stage doing some stand-up somewhere... or I'm creating a parody video flexing my pecs.

In most audience-participation shows, the participant is so clearly not a part of what's going on that it's the fish-out-of-water aspect that makes it funny.

You have to know you are in a comedy. You have to know that you are actually allowing the audience to participate on some level. When you go dark and mean it, then you don't let them in.

As a former stand-up comic from my University of Michigan days, the opportunity to participate in a Friars Club roast was bucket-list stuff.

I decided that instead of making jokes about politics, I need to take part in it, and therefore, I can't make jokes and participate.

I don't think I am particularly funny. In fact, I know I'm not.

Action comedy, if you can get it right, it is, for me, a particularly brilliant genre. It really is.

Who do I like? I am a big fan of French and Saunders - not that that they are particularly stand-up I have to say, but I think they have been great for women and they are of themselves just incredibly funny whether they are male or female.

I'd buy joke books and try doing them at school; I always had jokes. That would be my go-to thing at parties: I'd be able to get through them if I just told enough jokes. Otherwise, I wouldn't end up talking to anybody.

I think there's a certain objectivity that comes from being Canadian. You're partly British and partly American; you have a good bird's-eye view of both countries. So much of the comedy that comes out of Canada is impersonation - it's less 'look at me' than it is 'look at me playing other people.'

I knew I couldn't do what Eddie Izzard does, so I just tried to write some stories that were based, or partly based, on my own experiences.

I have to visualise my jokes, live my jokes, feel the audience because every audience is different. It's like having a different dancing partner every night.

I think you can write very good comedy without a partner, but what I love about it, working with a partner, is that you get to places you'd never get on your own. It's like when God was designing the world and decided we couldn't have children without a partner; it was a way of mixing up the genes so you'd get a more interesting product.

We come from Second City where you're taught if you make your fellow stage partner look good, that makes you look good.

Before I got into stand-up, I used to be a hip-hop dancer in a crew, and my name was J. Smoove, and my partner was J. Groove.

When you have a writing partner and you're writing a comedy, your goal is to make each other laugh.

Movies like 'Partner' and 'Mujhse Shaadi Karogi' do really well. I think I should also do such movies.

We became Morris and Morecambe. This partnership did not last long, however.