Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I love awesome mixed drinks.
I'm a huge 'Twin Peaks' fan.
You can use cheap technology to get a great look.
There is no 'recycle too much.' That's an oxymoron.
On 'Baskets,' I'm not sure what the demographic is.
When people feel vulnerable, they make slapstick decisions.
I want to work with extremely, genuinely charismatic people.
I'm never trying to make something esoteric; it just happens.
You can tell a lot about a person by what comedians they like.
Nobody sets out to be evil. They're insecure, and they make bad decisions.
Bands on tour are very good cultivators of what's the avant-garde of comedy.
Portland is utopia. My favorite thing would be it's earnestness. I am earnest, too.
For me, I love and hate Costco. I think it's ruined America and made America great.
When you make a pilot, you've never seen the show before; you don't know what it is.
I know comedy; I know how to do crazy, off-the-wall stuff that makes me laugh out loud.
Everything else was snarky and high concept, while 'Roseanne' was just a normal family.
'Portlandia' is 100 percent improvised, and I came into this business not knowing anything.
In Portland, it rains all the time - but who cares? That's not funny. That's not universal.
I'm not a big 'scripted comedy' person necessarily. I'm open for wherever comedy can be found.
Comedy is like horror - you have to shock something in the viewer's system to make them feel it.
I like dry-to-the-bone stuff. I don't know what it is. I was raised on PBS showing weird British comedies.
Different actors have different rhythms. My goal as a director is to let these guys get their best work out.
Things that people are doing constantly but aren't thinking about. That's the ultimate 'Portlandia' concept.
I love the beige, tan, stucco world where the sun bleaches things out to the point that it can look somewhat ugly.
I think any person who is starting out in a creative endeavor is not going to be good at it right out of the gate.
If you have, especially with siblings, something like the competition for mom's affection, it just never goes away.
With comedy, I've always had a pretty good sense of what I like and how to execute it well, but drama has its own rules.
There's a thing in comedy where you take one step into a bad idea, but if you take 10, then it becomes a good idea again.
You see a lot of comedic content that's not funny, and you can tell that it's supposed to be funny, but it's actually not funny.
I went to film school, and I came in when video art was king, weird stuff was king, and there, you don't have a script as your bible.
A lot of the 'Portlandia' characters and a lot of the moments aren't really TV-worthy, but that's what is so refreshing about seeing them.
I think when you work with people who are super exceptional, there's simplicity to it because everybody is on the same page in terms of tone.
Certain shows, when it's all comedy, it's like when you eat something that's too sweet and it just tastes gross. You need that salted caramel.
In your twenties, you might want to be radical and change the world, but in your thirties, you might just want to be happy and ground yourself.
'Fawlty Towers' was a huge influence on me. I mean, it was so slapstick, too. 'Are You Being Served?' was on 15 times a day, it seemed like, and I loved it.
Once the big lights come in, you can feel self-conscious. How can you capture the scene without ruining it and freezing people up? You keep it small and lean.
With all the outlets, if you have a strong comedic voice, there's a venue to do your thing. It's a bit of a meritocracy, where the best stuff rises to the top.
The Internet is a good way to try some stuff with no big crew and no money being spent. Since there are no stakes to it, you can try to be a little experimental.
Louie Anderson thinks my thing is the absurdness of reality. That's what we do on 'Portlandia' all the time. I try to bring that absurdness of reality to everything.
My dad did show me interesting movies at a young age. I remember he showed me 'A Clockwork Orange,' and my mom said, 'I never want to see this movie in my house again.'
A huge part of making something work is getting along with people you work with. You want them to succeed; you want them to bring their ideas to life as much as possible.
I am huge fan of Australian comedy. 'Strictly Ballroom' is one of my favorite movies. Definitely the British Commonwealth's sensibility is where I draw a lot of my influences.
There's some moments in your life where you're just like, 'I need something just funny.' That's the noble thing you can do. Make someone forget about their life for 22 minutes.
As the director, you have it in your mind how you want the part done, how you want someone to do it, and so sometimes you just say, 'Why don't I do it myself?' So for a little role, I'll just do it.
The end goal is to make a piece that everybody has ownership over and everybody's proud of because everybody contributed to it. I think there's a communist, socialist vibe to 'Portlandia' to make it work.
I look at a show like 'Roseanne.' That's super influential on me. It's very funny, very real, with real problems. That was a big influence, and I don't know if you see that all the time in the network world.
It's how you define yourself. It's not Nirvana or Pearl Jam: it's, 'Do you watch 'Portlandia' or 'Amy Schumer'?' It relates to a specific sense of humor. And, 'Do you know the hidden gems?' Like, if you knew the Pixies in the '80s.
Portland is a place where everyone closes their eyes and crosses their fingers and hopes for a better community. They keep it small and local, and usually they think if they just make great coffee, it's the best thing for the neighborhood.
It's exciting being in the present. You're always reading emails, talking about the future, looking at pictures on Facebook of the past. But living in the present? It's almost a dead medium. I almost want to do a sketch about being in the present.
I always look at 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.' They talked about how they wrote this movie with horses, and then they realized that horses are super-expensive and time-consuming. 'Why don't we just change it to coconuts?' That's part of my process.