Comedy History Quotes

Back when Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dean Martin were doing roasts, they were all friends. They knew each other's children, each other's wives, each other's families. It wasn't about being disrespectful. It was about being funny.

Comedy historians take note: this Gottfried character doesn't have the best eye for detail - and, for a Jew, he doesn't have the best eye for retail, either.

When I first started comedy, me and my friends were kids. I claim - although I know that it's a spurious and probably untrue claim - that we were the first generation of kids to act black.

I started doing stand-up at the age of 20. This was back in 1976, around the time (coincidence?) that the first comedy clubs were starting. The young comedians of today gasp when I tell them how many shows I did that first year: 500. Five nights a week.

When I graduated from college, I moved to New York and started doing improv because I read all about the early 'Saturday Night Live' guys having come through Second City and learning how to improvise, so I wanted to get immediately into that.

Comedy has had no history, because it was not at first treated seriously.

I know for myself, every now and again on HBO, they'll show some of the young comedian specials from the '80s and early '90s, and it's just fascinating to watch those comedians - some of whom are people that are world-famous, like Chris Rock or Judd Apatow - to see the jokes that people had, but also, the way everything looked.

Nihilism in American comedy came along way before 'The Simpsons.' There was a fairly nihilistic point of view to 'Saturday Night Live,' for instance, back in the beginning, and a lot of really dark comedy had a really anti-sentimental take on life.

It's still amazing to me to walk down the halls of 'SNL.' You see pictures of the greatest comedians we grew up worshiping, basically. It's crazy to be able to still work there.

When I was coming up the DC Improv was considered the best Improv out there. It's always been high quality stuff coming out of there.

I've met so many remarkable people so far, coming up through stand-up all these years, who just aren't alive anymore. Because they are dead. Some really great people who helped change my life and career, people like Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison, Rodney Dangerfield, Johnny Carson.

I love comedy and I would write things to myself as an exercise in writing. I didn't do well for years, and I quit. I started to break down why I was afraid and started to look at people I admired, like Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Freddie Prinze, George Carlin and all.

Who made me laugh when I was growing was Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, and then moving on, there were so many that I was a writer for for many years: I was a writer for the Smothers Brothers, Lily Tomlin, then I started on 'Saturday Night Live' as the head writer the first year we started it.

The first time I heard Richard Pryor, I knew he would be a major force in the world of comedy.

If there were a Mount Rushmore of American humor, Terry Southern would be the mountain they'd carve it from

I've always loved the Marx brothers and Charlie Chaplin.

I think, first of all, I don't think people understand Ice Cube's body of work. Ice Cube is a, and I hate to use the word 'urban' but - when you think of Judd Apatow, and a person who's launched so many careers, Ice Cube has done that for so many comedians, you know?

When I came into comedy in 2005, I didn't even know there was discrimination against musical comics in the alternative-comedy strain.

Jerry Lewis played on the very first season of Mad About You, and he played basically himself, but he was called some other name. He said he's never done it; he'd never done a half-hour of [sitcom] television. This was 1992 or '93. And I said, "Well how is that?" And he goes, "Nobody ever asked me." It's like the pretty girl at the dance; everybody's too afraid to ask.

Growing up, there were TV shows that were very funny but very traditional. Classic things like 'Fawlty Towers,' obviously, and 'Blackadder' were pretty traditionally shot. And then there were the ones that start to break the mold or be really ambitious. The ones that spring particularly to mind would be 'The Young Ones.'

I'm a huge fan of Jonathan Winters. He's influenced everyone who's ever done improvisational comedy. You look to Jonathan Winters for inspiration. He paved the way. If you've ever made up something on the spot and made somebody laugh, you can credit Jonathan Winters with inspiration.

Whatever happened to a good pie-in-the-face joke?

From National Lampoon, you go directly to Saturday Night Live, because it's a lot of the same people.

I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.

I'm such a fan of Lily's [Tomlin], for so many years. I feel like Lily was the first popular mainstream crossover comedian who also was kind of an overtly feminist comedian.