The last thing on my mind was to be an actor, but I had a crush on a cute girl in the drama department, so the best thing for me to do was audition, help out, do carpentry, whatever it took to get me on that project.

I mean, Cheers [from the Star Wars] was just a job while we were doing it. All of us were really only hustling to pay the rent, weren't we.

[ Oval House] director, Peter Oliver, gave you the right to fail. He had a philosophy that came from Winston Churchill that you go from failure to failure with enthusiasm. So Peter gave us a go and that's how Ray [Hassett] and I ended up starting Sal's Meat Market at the Oval House.

Sure, the comedians who swear or use scatological humor can get laughs, but they're uncomfortable laughs.

I don't know how many days I worked there [on Star Wars]. The thing I do remember was I somehow got a parking space next to Kermit the Frog. It was Jim Henson's space, with this Kermit the Frog sign. I took a photo of it and sent it to my mom with a caption that read, "Look, Mom. I made it. I got a parking space next to Kermit the Frog." I was always fascinated by the film-set infrastructures.

One of the high points in my career came from a time I had with Tim Conway on a film when I had him fall down with laughter. I had this scene with him where I was this mechanic down fixing his car. I can't remember what my line was as written, but they were okay with me doing a made-up line. So Tim asks me what's wrong with his car, and I look up and say, "Well, looks like you got a squirrel caught up in there."

All over the US, there is a need to teach young people to, really, get them out in the backyard, building treehouses, fixing bicycles, because you become a better, more well-rounded, Renaissance personality if you actually know how to do things with your hands. If you can fix the screen door or replace your old garbage disposal, even change the tire on a car, a lot of people don't even know how to do that. We're literally running out of people who know how to do those things, the essential things like plumbing, carpentry, stone masonry, we're literally running out of them.