While many comics have a secret persona, I fundamentally want to be myself.

While many comics have a secret persona, I fundamentally want to be myself.

I did a lot of ridiculous television. Between 1980 and '85 I had no confidence, so I did everything I was told to do.

The two things that can hurt you are if you need money or if you need fame. Those are the things that can be your Achilles' heel. But if you don't need money and you don't need fame, then you're free.

I used to sneak up to the 8th floor and watch Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo rehearsing 'Saturday Night Live' and could only wonder if I would ever have the chance to be funny. It took me five years to go up the two stories, but it is such a sense of fulfillment to be able to show what I can do on national television.

I've never really worked on them. Just once in a while one hits me and makes me laugh. My Al Gore was sort of like a gay Gomer Pyle.

After years of begging, I got my parents to get me a little Craig tape recorder, a reel to reel. Then I started recording voices, or recording Jonathan Winters off television and stuff like that.