Comedic Heritage Quotes

Comedy is a very big part of the English culture, the sense of humor; it's a very dominant trait.

I was pretty much a child of 'Monty Python.' I grew up loving that type of humor and even structured a lot of humor in the same fashion.

Freddie Prinze was my idol, and he died, and there is not much of his stuff to look at. But now, your comedy can live on forever.

I kind of was raised at The Comedy Store by comedians. When you see my dad on stage before me and then you see me, you'll see where I got a lot of my stuff.

If you're watching comedy movies, go back and check out the Marx Brothers in 'Duck Soup,' or Buster Keaton in 'The General,' or Laurel and Hardy or W.C. Fields or whatever - and see what pure talent really was, so that you can see where it came from, and then you can sort of gauge it from there.

I was a 'Laurel and Hardy' nut. I got to know Laurel at the end of his life, and it was a great thrill for me. He left me his bow tie and derby and told me that if they ever made a movie about him, he'd want me to play him.

The reason I do what I do is because I was influenced by Steve Martin, by Woody Allen, by Bob Newhart, by Carol Burnett, by Lucille Ball.

I'm a huge fan of 'The Odd Couple,' yes, and any comparisons to Tony Randall and or Jack Lemmon are completely welcome. I kind of try to channel those guys, and then add my own neuroses, too.

I think I have a finely tuned sense of humor. I think just being around it and growing up in it... my dad and Mel Brooks and Norman Lear. These are the people I grew up around.

In comedy, looking back is more important than looking around at your contemporaries because they are too much influenced by the same time period as you are.