Somewhat naively, I entered the BBC's 'New Talent Competition,' believing it was for people who had never tried comedy before. I remember sitting in the dressing room before the show and hearing the other acts - who all knew one another - talking to Rhod Gilbert about how he must be about ready to go 'full-time' as a comic.
I don't think Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell fear competition from me in their arena.
Everyone who wants to make it in comedy goes to L.A., so a million comedians fight for time on three stages. If you get in there in New York, you're working eight times a night sometimes. Who's going to be funny, the guy who works once a week, or the guy working eight times a night?
We hoped to get a TV show, and we almost did, but 'The State' beat us out for this MTV show. So because they were there, and 'SNL' and 'Kids in the Hall' were there, we thought, 'Let's go try to do what Python did, and instead, let's make movies.'
I watch the wonderful Dara O'Briain refereeing 'Mock the Week,' where they all compete with each other. I wouldn't be on that. It frightens the life out of me.
Comedy is crowded. There are hundreds of comedians in every place in the world.
I want to come back and do talk. I want to do late-night talk the right way. Arsenio ain't there anymore, and the late-night talk competition is weak. All them dudes is weak. I don't even know who they are. Weirdos, and I don't even care. I want to bring real fun back to late night where a real comedian is doing it.
I got lucky. I won the San Francisco Stand-Up Comedy Competition in 1977 while I was still at San Francisco State.
I was writing stand up comedy for TV for around 5 years and just wanted to attempt it myself. Vir Das started an amateur comedians' night in Bombay in 2009 and I went for the very first one. It was a competition and I won the first prize.
I decided I'd try my hand as a stand-up comedian, as I loved making people laugh, and appeared at the Latitude Festival, won the 2007 Laughing Horse New Act of the Year, and was a nominee for winner of the 2007 So You Think You're Funny competition.
We thought we were going to go up against SNL on Saturday Nights - that would have changed things so much that it's almost impossible to speculate what might have happened.
You know the quickest way to get comedians to hate you? Do Letterman at age 24.
What happened was, in my final year of university in Australia, there was a campus comedy competition, and I felt like it was something I could do. I won that competition, and I kept doing it, and I couldn't get a job in law. So I just kept doing comedy.
In the stand-up comedy top, there's room for everyone - if you're good, there's room for everyone. You'll put on your own show - no one casts you. You cast your own show as a stand-up comedian. When you get good at stand-up comedy you book a theater and if people show up, people show up. If people don't show up, people don't show up. You don't have a director or a casting agent or anybody saying if you're good enough - the audience will decide.
'Bunk' is a comedy game show where, each week, three of my favorite comedians compete in a series of bizarre and meaningless challenges all for my entertainment. Ethan T. Berlin and Eric Bryant created 'Bunk.'
The first time probably people really were aware of me, I unfortunately had the title of Showtime's Funniest Person in America. And that's a really tough title to travel around with when you're not even known.
As far as standup goes, I really feel like I can stand and bang and trade with anybody in the game.
