Most comedy comes out of misery.

Like Toy Story, the joke is all about exploring the secret world of these various everyday objects.

I hadn't done a comedy for a while. I had directed a very low budget movie called The Ape and it was playing at a festival in Austin. Judd [Apatow] was there and he came and saw it and it's kind of funny.

Every once in a while you definitely have to film someone for half an hour saying something that you do not think is funny because for the previous two hours they said a bunch of stuff that you think is really funny.

I think I was just so ecstatic that I was working, and then as it went on, you know, I started to really appreciate that it ["Freaks and Geeks"] was good and that we were doing something a little different and that, you know, everyone was really cool to work with and that it was really talented group of people, and it was just when I was realizing that, that it got canceled.

I always thought realistic was a better way to explain things that were "dramedies" because life is like that. It's funny, it's dramatic and to me that's how I see it.

Just always be extremely respectful, was something that was drilled into me, which I think probably prevented me from having sex for a good seven years longer than it should have.