Absurdist Comedy Quotes

Mel Brooks and David Zucker - there are very few people who know silly, and they're usually hugely intelligent, because you have to be intelligent to get it. Like the Marx brothers. I love it.

Terry Gilliam has directed some of the best examples of what I like to see in a film - one of them being 'Baron Munchausen.'

You know, I think British comedy is very smart comedy. You don't get too much dumb comedy over here. Or at least I haven't seen it. If I'm wrong about that, I apologize to all the dumb comedy makers over here.

People used to think I was just a shouty comic but I was doing stuff about Sartre.

There's this weird kind of coming-in-from-left-field thing going on, and I love it - I am a huge fan of Christopher Durang.

All theatre is absurd.

My style of comedy is probably absurdist, observational, and Olympian.

As soon as I go into a dark subject, like discussing the people I've loved and lost, I off-road into absurdist comedy perversion. It's both a means of protection and a kind of denial, a blessing and a curse. Wait, it's not a blessing at all. I guess it would be a bad habit and a curse.

I really like dramas that have a tone of comedy in them or the opposite, and those are done by people like Alexander Payne and Jason Reitman but also Spike Jonze and David O. Russell and Paul Thomas Anderson, the Coen Brothers.

Sometimes 'Portlandia' can be pretty traditional. But the stuff I've always loved on 'SNL' has always been the weirdest stuff I've done. The stuff that went on at 10 to 1 in the morning.

I love the absurd - kind of absurdist comedy, absurd things in life.

I'd have to say that my favorite kind of film is serious comedy. Comedy with serious underpinning. 'Little Miss Sunshine' is like that. That's my fave genre, if I had to pick one.

I can't summarize my favorite movie, Jacques Tati's 'Play Time.' You just have to see it.

I was greatly influenced by 'The Goons' and 'Monty Python' reconstituting what comedy was - it could come from a funny word, not just a set up and a pay-off. I liked the zaniness; they were satirical, slightly saucy and very literary in their references.

'Portlandia' is the most fun show. When I get a breakdown of what the arc of the story is going to be, I could never in my wildest dreams anticipate the direction.

The dark comedies tend to be in a non-releasable area. There can be romantic comedies. There can be dramas. But there's no 'dark comedy' inbox for the advertising.

I'm a huge fan of French comedy. The French play comedy in a slightly different way than we do: they play it with a sort of realism that we don't necessarily often do ourselves.

One of my favorite comedy performances of all time is Charles Grodin in 'Midnight Run,' and in a lot of things he's done. I think he's hilarious as the straight man, playing it real.

I think 'Nathan for You' is a really funny show, along with 'The Grinder' and 'Baskets.' I really like 'Man Seeking Woman.' It's the coolest show because they just do weird stuff, and it doesn't feel weird; they make it normal somehow, which I applaud. And 'Broad City' - I think those guys are awesome.

My dream career would be to be in things that have real heart and are telling real stories but while doing that, you're getting really big laughs. I don't necessarily love the straight crazy comedies. 'Caddyshack' is amazing, but there's not a lot of new 'Caddyshack's.

I want to be in a Tim Burton movie so bad.

In Czechoslovakia, we consider Kafka a very funny man. A humorist.

I grew up watching all these crazy movies, European movies and stuff, and I guess that I always laughed at things that were a little more offbeat.

I like things that are immature and offbeat and bizarre. Random jokes. Weird stuff. And stupid. Stupid is the highest compliment a person can pay to me.

If you like Harry Hill, you'd really like Tony Law. He's a Canadian comic who's done a few appearances on 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' and '8 out of 10 Cats.' Nobody else could do his stand-up; it's very idiosyncratic, very daft, very silly, but really well structured.