Quotes About Comedy

I was voted Most Humorous in my senior class in high school, and I was a fan of comedy, my whole life. I never got into the horror genre, and action was fine, but I just loved comedy. Any comedy I could get my hands on, I would. I watched Saturday Night Live religiously. I've just been a fan of comedy, my whole life.

I think that comedy really tells you how it is. The other thing about comedy is that - you don't even know if you're failing in drama, but you do know when you're failing in comedy. When you go to a comedy and you don't hear anybody laughing, you know that you've failed.

I naturally think in terms of comedy whenever I see anything because tragedy is so close to comedy, so I like to add the tragedy to the comedy or a little bit of comedy to the tragedy in order to make them both feel more real to me.

I love good comedy. I don't like bad comedy. Of course, nobody loves bad comedy, but there's a lot of bad comedy out there.

There's a lot of comedy in Intermission but it's got this depth. It's not comedy for comedy's sake - it's informed by something else. I like stuff like that

[on making the transition from the comedy "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970) to its dramatic spin-off series "Lou Grant" (1977)] We were really worried about changing over from a three-camera, half-hour comedy to a one-camera, full-hour drama. The audience wasn't ready for the switch - even CBS billed us in their promos as a comedy. In fact, the whole thing was impossible. But we didn't know that.

I think comedy is drama, often. It's hard to have comedy over a period of time - commercials are one thing, but over a period of time - comedy and tragedy go hand in hand.

I'm very interested in trying to make comedy shows that are a bit bigger, more theatrical, more of a "show." Some people might say I'm trying too hard, but that's a compliment to me. I like to inject a bit of production value and flair to comedy, or at least to my little corner of comedy.

I don't like comedy. I like funny things. I don't like comedy. Like, comedy movies are just, 'Oh Jesus.'

Its consistency of what comedy can do and what comedy can be.Growing up with that show [The Simpsons] shaped my worldview.

Well, for me, it's the relationship between comedy and life - that's the edge I live on, and maybe it's my protection against looking at the tragedy of it all. It's seeing life in balance. Comedy and tragedy co-exist. You can't have one without the other. I'm of the school that anything can be funny, if seen from a comedic point of view.

The crooks downtown figured out that comedy is like a hammer. It can put up a barn and it can knock down a wall. So they bought it outright and marketed it as Comedy Central.

Comedy and drama are different sides of the same coin. And the thing about comedy and drama is about likability. It's about character first. It's about story. And for me, it's about empathy, and I think the realer someone is, the further you can go either way with them.

For me comedy and violence has a lot in common. Just as you expect, comedy always lurks behind the most unexpected of circumstances.

That's what I think works the best, and what I think makes the best comedy - something that's completely committed and more approached as an acting exercise, as opposed to being worried about whether to be funny or not. The comedy comes from the context.

Comedy is a funny thing, and it's really not like any other art form in that it's very specialized and varied in it's content, but generic in it's title. You would never go to a club just to see "Live music," you would go to a jazz club to see jazz, a blues club to see blues, etc. But when you go to see "standup comedy," if you don't know the performers material, you really don't have any idea what you're gonna get.

I'm Here All Weak might be the strangest comedy album I have ever heard. But I've listened twice, which is more than I listen to 90 percent of all comedy albums, so I think I love it?

We all know what tragedy is. "Yes, I'd rather not have any more tragedy, please. I'll have comedy, please." Comedy, in the Greek sense, only means that it has a happy ending.

Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that's really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.

I like comedy. I would love to do comedy for a long time.

Comedians have varying levels of training. It can range from classically trained actors (like Robin Williams) to people who took comedy classes to folks who just started doing it. That's the beauty of comedy: it's close to a pure meritocracy.

In all honesty, we don't know what's in the hearts of other men. All I know is that I respect comedy and I know comedy. I would never, ever, ever take somebody else's joke.

I didn't really get into comedy until a couple months before I started doing comedy.

In terms of a comedy plan I don't really have a list of what I want accomplish. I'm just riding the wave! I think I will always come back to stand-up and comedy in all its forms. I just don't think it will ever be the one sole thing I do.

Yeah, well I've always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that's really where my training is. As an actor, that's my training.

Both law and comedy are heavily focused on thought and viewing all angles. To write a good joke, you have to look at a premise every way possible. And with a good legal argument, you have to see all sides to get the best line of argument for your client. Law school made me a better comic, and comedy has made me a better public speaker.

My favorite kind of film is serious comedy. Comedy with serious underpinning.

I can do comedy but it's a certain type. I'm not a physical comedy guy. I'm not Will Ferrell - there's just this crazy and get naked and run through the thing screaming. That's just not my style; my style is drama or - I'm not slapstick.

I felt audiences are happier to take comedy people who play darker people because there's a link between the psychosis of comedy and the psychosis of being a twisted character.

I cant imagine getting bored with comedy or thinking comedy is beneath us suddenly.

I don't necessarily know much about comedy, I don't spend a lot of time watching it. Mainly because all my life for about 50 years I've had comedy.

I just like comedy in general. My film work, which has been at times more dramatic, has been satisfying. But I never feel quite as good and as light and blissful as when I'm doing comedy.

I think training in comedy, as it were, a history writing comedy, is a powerful tool for anyone.

The comedy really comes from how badly you want these characters to succeed and with a comedy that's often hard.

I love physical comedy. Comedy that comes from an emotional place is amazing too and lets me develop in a new way as an actor.

I heard there were two local guys in town doing songs and comedy so I thought I'd take a look....they took my breath away...with their music, comedy, and showmanship.... 'Dakaboom'.. is the genuine article! Two voices in perfect harmony, and with joyful abandon and humor, they take you on a magical, musical, modern day vaudeville tour!! Ben McLain and Paul Peglar are headed for stardom. They are unique, they are original, and they are known as 'Dakaboom.' Don't miss 'em 'cause you're in for a treat!

Comedy born of bewilderment is the only comedy that should be in magic.

I started in comedy when I first started as an actor on stage and doing improvisational theater and stuff like that. So a lot of people who know me know that sort of side of me. But I got the roles that I got as an young actor kind of steered me in a different direction, which were, at times, darker characters. And so comedy was not something that came easy for people to think of my in those terms.

For me, comedy and drama are all the same thing. How the comedy ever even started in my life was that moments got uncomfortable and I felt uncertain of what the outcome was going to be, so I found a way to deflect what I was feeling, or what everyone else was feeling, by creating laughter.

I find I've always been judgmental about comedy (laughs) and it's hard to turn that off, really. But what constant exposure to live comedy does is it makes you give people a second chance.

I'm proud of everything I've done. If it's comedy, it's 'cause I think it's funny. If it's a drama, it's impactful. I'm leaning towards dramas now because I wrapped a couple comedies in a row. I don't like watching myself, but it's easier on me when I don't have to carry a lot of the comedy. But I enjoy making comedies but dramas come more naturally.

I also love doing comedy. I just moved to L.A. last July. Before that, Vancouver is all about sci-fi, so I didn't get any comedy, whatsoever. But in L.A., people are like, "You don't look quirky enough," and I'm like, "I'm quirky. I'm the definition of quirky. How do you want me to look quirky." They have these little boxes that they put everyone in, so now I have to try to break the mold and get them to see me as being quirky.

I was doing stand up comedy when I was 11, that's how I got started; not because I wanted to do comedy, but because we were broke, living in Echo Park in Downtown Los Angeles, from 1986, I saw the Rodney King riots; my parents didn't really work. But I wanted a new backpack, that's how I got into this business - I wanted a new backpack.

The work I'm doing on the screen differs from that of anyone else. My comedy is of a peculiar nature...no writers have been developed along the lines of my type of comedy and this is why I sometimes have differences with writers, supervisors and directors alike.

One of the great things with comedy is that there's no such thing as a mediocre comedy; it's either uproarious or crap. That's the problem.

I think sadness and anger are really fertile ground for comedy. No one is really interested in a happy person doing comedy.

I was open to anything. That doesn't mean I would do anything, it just means I was open to anything. I've met for dramas, single camera comedy, multi-camera comedy. I take each script as an individual project.

I'd like to do a comedy with Emma Thompson. I admire her as an actress so much. I love her. And I didn't know it until recently that her whole career started in comedy.