Jon Batiste Quotes

I've been on Letterman a couple of times. I've been on Leno more than a couple times, and now Letterman hates me because I've been on Leno more than him. They're very jealous of one another, as you know.

I was a big Jay Leno fan, so I was sorry to see him go. But my number one person that I watch, she's not late night, but in terms of the comedian genre, is Ellen DeGeneres - love her.

YouTube clips get millions, billions of hits. Reality TV programs have their own channels. How can movies attempt to compete with these kinds of numbers? And do we even need to? Are we scaring ourselves by unnecessary comparisons, by not comparing apples with apples?

Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting.

Leno, Conan. They are both really funny. They really know how to land one.

Late night television is ready for someone like me... standards have gone to an all-time low.

The truth is, we have this idea that late night is about creativity and being cool, but that's not our job. Our job is to get as many people watching the commercials in between our show. That's the reality of it.

I watch Jay. I watch 'Letterman'. I flip back and forth between 'Conan' and 'Letterman', especially the top of the show for those guys.

It gets harder and harder to succeed and find audiences with the 500-channel universe, the remote control, and people being so trigger happy with that remote control. It just gets harder to get a foothold.

Don't ever rope me in as a late-night talk show host. I don't want to be one.

When I was growing up, I wanted to do Letterman and I loved that live, in-studio model. I still would do something like that.

I not only hope that YouTube channels compete with television shows for viewers and revenue, I hope they develop a bitter rivalry which could only be settled by an elaborate medieval tournament where the two entities fight to the death in a steel cage.

I think there are ways in which shows can pop their heads up a little bit in the morass of everything you can watch.

For those who don't like Dave Letterman, there's Jay Leno; and for those who like neither, there's Craig Ferguson; and if you're still feeling undertained, there's George Lopez and Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel and - let's see, did we leave out a Jimmy?

When I was young, I'd watch guys on 'The Tonight Show', Buddy Hackett, guys like that, where all they'd be is funny. Later, I remember, on 'Late Night with Letterman', I remember he'd have Jay Leno and Richard Lewis as first guests and the entire point was to entertain and be funny, and I think talk shows have kind of lost that.

Reality is a genre that seems to be here to stay. I don't know how many of the new shows will last, but the more competition you have, the harder that pie is to slice up.

The entertainment industry is a very noisy, crowded marketplace.

The first time I was on Letterman, I was, like, 20 years old, and I was on a show called 'Camping with Barry White Night.'

My favourite was 'Fantasy Football League.' I thought it would be the most exciting thing ever to be friends with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel.

I want more stand-up comics in prime time. It's great for every comedian.

I doubt anyone has ever accused comedians of solidarity before. It's hard to think of a less collegiate world than that of unabashed professional narcissists competing for attention; even when we reluctantly band together on panel shows, we're only trying to sell solo tours.

I started doing stand-up when I was 15 and doing Letterman when I was 20. So I've been doing stand-up comedy and clubs for over 30 years. That's a long time.

I'm not going to say the market is flooded, but there are a lot of people doing comedy.

From my experience working with comedians, there is that competitive aspect. With actors, for instance, they don't want to look competitive even if they are, whereas comedians, I think, are openly happy to play on the idea that they all compete with each other to get the laughs. There's something about comedy, I think, that encourages that. There's this kind of schoolboy sense of wanting to top the other person that we play off of to show them competing for who's smarter or cleverer.

I'm tired of explaining to Hollywood that people would laugh at me, because I go around America making them laugh every week. Nobody would be offended, nobody would think my leather pants are too controversial.