Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.

I was never a Certified Public Accountant. I just had a degree in accounting. It would require passing a test, which I would not have been able to do.

It was a decision to work clean. I just prefer to work that way. I have no problem with comedians who don't work that way. There was a temptation in the early '70s to reconsider. I decided against it.

I think there are still words you can't use in family entertainment that you can use in a sitcom today.

Every new routine I have ever written and performed probably occurred extemporaneously. Then after you have fleshed it out and tried it out in front of a number of audiences and it works, you put it down on paper.

In today's world, you would call my father mostly unaccessible. I'm not sure that isn't true of most fathers at that time. He went through the Depression. I don't know what that would have done to my psyche.