Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Fantasy football has changed how I watch football because now every game is interesting start to finish. Even when its the Browns and Lions.
Comedy can't be done in a vacuum, and you can't do it on your own. So if you have a community of people, it's a great symbiotic relationship.
For me, the goal wasn't to turn the stand-up special on its head, but to do what I do specifically, and hopefully that reads as something new.
As long as it's not an easy, outdated stereotype and it comes from an interesting or emotionally driven place, then anyone can be made fun of.
The thing that's the biggest bummer about any live show is a hot, sober room. So if it's during the day and people are a little buzzed, great.
An autograph is actually refreshing because everyone has cameras now and wants a selfie. That's why I carry signed headshots with me, to give out.
When you're playing something, hopefully, if you're doing your best, you're advocating for your character and you're not trying to think too much.
You think you're going to be on TV a year out of college and you're not. Then you tell people and it's embarrassing. And then it's not a big deal at all.
No doubt there are people who are our guests [ in Oh, Hello] who are more famous, but to me, Mel Brooks is the most famous person. So that was really cool.
Whether it's corporate investigations or comedy, there are certain inherent truths to trying to get what you want while trying to be a decent person doing it.
If you talk to most ambitious people, people who are high achievers, they're rarely at peace with what they're doing because they need an engine to keep moving.
Seinfeld has his way of telling jokes - and I'm not comparing myself to Seinfeld, his genius is observing the small details of everyday life and finding humor in it.
I started doing improv in college, and I met Mike Birbiglia and John Mulaney and a bunch of other very funny, talented people who I'm still friends with and work with.
I find Spike Jones' movies to be really very inventive and funny, but they're really sad and touching and really key into the different facets of the human experience.
The more you're able to understand how to do a good dramatic performance, that can inform your comedy. It all informs one another. And it keeps everything interesting.
A lot of times, you're circling around a lot of things, and then you find that one person, or that little piece of dialogue, and it doesn't always have to be in person.
Robert Altman made that movie Kansas City about the jazz scene in the city, and we saw that band all together, and that was an amazing show. That's what I got into. I like jazz.
Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner are the funniest dudes ever, and they have great careers on their own. They made great art in the '90s, and they still have dinner three times a week.
People want to consume what you're putting out there, and you can create a really strong following of fans and admirers, and people who are invested in your career and your comedy.
It's not that weird, but when I was in Peru, I ate a guinea pig. If you're going to eat guinea pig, you call it cuy. Cute word for such a cute little animal that I ate a few times.
I won't share everything, both in my act or in interviews. Some of the people who become the most famous are the most self-revelatory, and I'm like, 'No, it's just not worth it to me.'
In general in comedy, there are fewer people making a ton of money and a lot more people making a living. For me, the goal is just being able to make exactly the show I wanted to make.
My first job. I got fired from this MTV prank show, or I didn't make the cut of what ended up being, as we all know, Boiling Points. It was my first professional job and I was bragging.
My goal was to do something that incorporated all the stuff I do and have it feel like something new, like it was hopefully taking the stand-up special paradigm and turning it on its head.
My first concert isn't that cool or ironic. I wish it had been like, "My first concert was the Backstreet Boys," but the first concert I went to, I think, was this band called The Samples.
Everybody gets better looking on TV as shows go on.Even the nerds on "Big Bang Theory" are getting better looking. Their clothes are getting nicer. They're better groomed. It works for them.
I don't like downtime, and I just am too insecure that I'll not work again if I don't start the ball rolling on the next round of things. Everything takes so long to make and come to fruition.
Usually, one of the first things I think about when I'm developing a character is what they're wearing. I mean, it sounds very cheesy and very actor-y, but it really does help me figure it out.
Really, I just love doing comedy. Any form it takes is great, as long as I can keep doing it, you know? If I can do my show and 'The League' while also getting to do other bits, that's awesome.
Music was not a big deal to me when I was in middle school. And then I slowly became a big jazz fan. Even more than concerts, a lot of my high school time was spent going to jazz clubs in the city.
'Cavemen' was obviously a big opportunity. I learned a lot about how to act and about the politics of being on a set every day. Like, who do you have to listen to and who you don't have to listen to.
I think that being on the road and doing more and more stand-up has allowed me to figure out... like, I don't think I'll ever be Bill Hicks, but I think I'm figuring out what my opinion is on things.
I like the idea of people getting to know you from different angles and then realizing "That guy is also that guy!" "Oh, he does that!" I really like having a number of different ways to reach people.
I came to New York and started doing stand-up and improv, and started auditioning for commercials and voiceovers and stuff. My first job was on a pilot of that prank show called 'Boiling Points' on MTV.
Anyone you give a ton of money to is going to go slightly crazy. I don't think comedians are particularly special in that regard; they just are better or more vocal in their expressions of their craziness.
I'm a good uncle, but I'm not a great caretaker. I feel oftentimes pretty selfish within the relationships I have with my siblings and, historically, with what I give back versus what I've taken over the years.
Without realizing it, I think I've wanted to do a sketch show since I was, like, 11 years old. Like everybody else in comedy, I grew up watching 'Saturday Night Live,' and I was doing characters with my friends.
They're not so much fans of independent movies are they are of independent theatres. They like small theaters with a vague, septic smell. They're not wild about the newfangled theaters with the assigned seating.
I'm proud of the work that we did, and my hope is that everyone who worked on 'Kroll Show,' it will be a credit that people will be like, 'Oh, you worked on that show? The word on that show was that it was good.'
I think a lot of podcasts have a lot of amazing character work. Seth Morris does this amazing character, Boch Duco, which I think is one of the funniest, most well-realized characters that I've ever seen or heard.
I was going to have Brian La Croix do a cameo on Degrassi. But, unfortunately, the scheduling didn't work out. When I was in Toronto, they weren't shooting. To me, that would've been a pretty crazy meta experience.
I was never a western guy, but I happened upon 'Tombstone' one day on TV and was really sort of taken with it. It's one of those movies that, if it's on TV, I can't turn it off. I just have to watch the whole thing.
In New York, you are forced into having very public lives and observing all types of people, what they sound like, what they're reading, what they smell like, what they are listening to, how they talk to their friends.
I did, like, one or two plays in high school, but I don't think I realized I wanted to do comedy until I got to college, and I started doing improv and saw the Upright Citizens Brigade perform and did workshops with them.
When I was a kid, I would do Andrew Dice Clay jokes for my siblings. Like, we'd be on vacation, and I'd just recite Andrew Dice Clay jokes. They seemed to think that was pretty funny. Then it evolved into 'Wayne's World.'
Part of making art is learning how you make it best. I'm not great at sitting down at a desk and writing for three hours. I write best verbally, talking through an idea with people, so I do my best work when I collaborate.
You have to have a first job to learn how to act, do interviews, pose for photo shoots, and negotiate how you'll say lines with writers. My first network show, 'Cavemen,' just happened to be one that was culturally reviled.
It's almost worse because you think that you're mature and classic when you're in the newsie cap jazz phase. It's not a great look, a young person trying to seem old and mature and cultured. That's a summarily not-cool look.
Even though 'Kroll' was a crazy sketch show with big characters, one of the things I'm proud of about the show is that the characters were always kind of coming from an emotionally honest place for whoever I thought that character was.
For me, I was literally trying to stay afloat. I never actually thought I would get my own sketch show. So the idea that one day I would have my own show is pretty wild. But once I got it, I thought, 'Yeah, this is exactly what I always wanted to do.