My comedic instinct, is a little bit more rooted in - my mother's British so I've always been more of the dry receiver of the crazy as opposed to the initiator of the crazy. I'm kind of predisposed to be the straight man.
I don't know how (producer) Dan Harmon put that together but he did. Everyone gets along and we all babysit Chevy Chase (laughs) and it all works out. Plus we are given a lot of freedom to riff off each other and compliment each other's comedic style. The group is so talented, whether it be Donald Glover or Allison Brie and now Jim Rash who plays the Dean is finally a full member of the cast - oh my gosh, he is so funny. I call him Rumplestiltskin; he can spin comedy out of anything. I am in such a blessed situation - if only more people would watch it.
We're weird guys. I don't know if a lot of people get our humor. A lot of people probably think we're jerks. We're real sarcastic. Really ironic and stuff. We mean well, but we joke around probably a lot more than we should.
I think my comedic style is at once bashful and explosive. It's a little bit perverted, and a little bit ladylike and old-fashioned, which is a great mix. Sort of tangy.
After I graduated, I tried Broadway, which was difficult for me. It was tough to get a part on Broadway, so I just started talking to audiences at different social gatherings, and little by little I became Don Rickles - whatever that is.
Early on, I had a girlfriend come see me, and she was like, 'Yeah, it was good, but you were funny at a dining hall at the University of Maryland.' That's when I realized I was contrived. I was reciting jokes. So I really worked on - no matter what - sounding like I was just talking to the people.
I'm not intentionally dirty. It just kind of happens. It's not like I'm a shock comic who's looking to walk people.
My brand of comedy is taking a serious approach to silliness. Small moments of modern life and human behavior make me laugh. At least that's where everything starts, and then my other through line would be a dry absurdity that exponentially spirals out of reality.
I'm a light comedienne; that's really where I live the most often.
My style of comedy is probably absurdist, observational, and Olympian.
I prefer the finesse of French humour. English humour is more scathing, more cruel, as illustrated by Monty Python and Little Britain.
Jacques Tati is the great philosophical tinkerer of comedy, taking meticulous care to arrange his films so that they unfold in a series of revelations and effortless delights.
I can watch an episode of Jerry Seinfeld, and by the end, I'm just walking around my house, you know, talking like Jerry Seinfeld. 'What is that? What are you doing? Who is it? What's going' - you know, I just had that thing, when I grew up, I'd just start talking like people. You know, I always had that.
Inserting my personal brand of humor is something I have at times had trouble doing - but I feel like I've been learning about it a little more, how to do it, and how it helps my songs.
If I had the gift of Jerry Seinfeld, of Bill Cosby, of Lewis Black, these instinctively brilliant comic minds, then you go that route! But you gotta know your limitations. I'm more of an actor, more of a process guy. I did Tom Snyder, just as Danny Aykroyd did on 'SNL.' I did it in the club.
I try to be kind, and I try to reflect that in my comedy, but I'm also incredibly bad at being mean. I can't pull it off effectively, so I always end up reverting back to politeness.
I don't like somebody saying to me in their performance, 'Look at this. Isn't this funny?' I pray that I don't do that. I'm sure I fall off the horse every once in a while, but I try not to.
My best jokes are so cheap. All I do is say things sarcastically.
When I became a standup comic, my hero, one of them, was Richard Pryor, and you know, I think that comedians, like, comedians talk about hacks, and what a hack is, is someone who does stuff that's not original.
There was a sea of change in comedy in the late 1950s and '60s. We were dealing with vignettes as opposed to jokes. We were more socially aware.
There's so much light in Broughty Ferry. I think the humour in Glasgow is darker, because it's much more gloomy, there's a perpetual misery there.
Our comedy was light-hearted amusement that seemingly tripped naturally off the tongue. That's why I don't think it will date.
I can only write what makes me laugh, and what makes me laugh is the comedy I grew up on.
Ninety-nine percent is in the delivery. If you have the right voice and the right delivery, you're cocky enough, and you pound down on the punch line, you can say anything and make people laugh maybe three times before they realize you're not telling jokes.
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.
