I'm a big cockeyed optimist. I try to accentuate the positive as opposed to the negative.

When I started in television, it was brand new. It was the miracle over in the corner of your room. Now the audience has seen every story line. People have heard every joke. They can predict the plot almost before a show starts. That's a hard, sophisticated audience to reach.

The audience today has heard every joke. They know every plot. They know where you're going before you even start. That's a tough audience to surprise, and a tough audience to write for. It's much more competitive now, because the audience is so much more - I want to say sophisticated.

I've worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years, and we have this magnificent photographer, Tad Motoyama. He takes these wonderful, wonderful animal pictures. All through the years he's given me copies of these pictures. Well, I have all these gorgeous ones, so I said, 'Tad, I want to do a book with your picture on one side.'

Humor is like a rhythm; it's like music. And you throw a couple of extra syllables in, you wreck the beat and you kill the laugh. So I try to follow the writers very carefully because I know how carefully they worked to do it that way.

If you call me a comedian I will be very grateful. I will thank you profoundly. No, I love doing comedy. It's fun once in a while to do a serious part but I really enjoy doing comedy because I love to laugh.

Having a live audience makes a world of difference to the acting. It keeps your timing sharp. When something doesn't work, the actor can sense the reaction from the audience and quickly move on.