It's much easier to make jokes about sensitive issues if there is some dissent, some conflict.

I love the excess of Christmas. The shopping season that begins in September, the bad pop star recordings of Christmas carols, the decorations that don't know when to come down.

I have such respect for people who do non-fiction casting after settling on the grandparents we got for this. It is really hard to find people who are not fame-whores. We're lucky these people actually wanted to spend their time doing this. All of them would have much rather been cooking without the cameras, being with their families. That's why they're great characters.

Generally I get up at around 7. But oftentimes, I'll be lolling in bed a little bit earlier - sometimes as early as 5:45 - filing in my mind all the things I have to get done. Which is, of course, totally unproductive.

Digital television, satellite radio, videogames, iPods - so much media. Do books even matter anymore?

A young imagination is bold, likes to make bigger leaps. It likes to, well, imagine that the dustbuster is a dinosaur; that the computer mouse is a hotrod; that the box is a cave; that the rawhide is a torch... or a baton... or something.

I'd rather call myself a mischief-maker, an imp, rather than a satirist. Satirist sounds so self important. Plus no one is calling himself an imp right now. It makes me feel special.