Entertainment Format Quotes

'Game Of Thrones' was too big a canvas for a movie, but 'Dirty White Boys' is like a great old Western: there's so much compression, and it's so pressurized, it demands to be told in one sitting.

I like the sitcom, as a structure.

If I have one criticism of the other late-night shows, it's that they're almost entirely scripted.

TV, particularly network television, gives you a much greater opportunity to tell a long-form story, to develop a character and keep it detailed. Film, by its nature, is more finite.

Most of the time, I don't think movies of TV shows are a great idea. It's worked a few times, but usually, I think that what's on TV works on TV.

Obviously neither 'American Idol' nor 'Dancing With the Stars' is a variety show in the classic sense, but the way they incorporate elements of drama, comedy and suspense is moderately ingenious.

It's fun to grow with a character over the course of a TV series. Video games are usually a much more condensed process.

Television has a different biorhythm than movies. I love the biorhythm of TV.

Frankly, I like DVDs having lots of things on it, but I have issues with it as well, too.

The original reality show.

[It] is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience. […] The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining. (87)

It never became an act in the sense of an act. It was always, no matter where we worked, little revues.

You have to surrender less when you see a film than when you go and see something live.

I love doing television; it's such a brilliant way to tell a story over six hours rather over the two hours of doing a movie.

I like television medium because it feels like we're doing a play, and I learned how to act in theater school, so that comes very naturally to me, this format. I like that people can laugh out loud when we're working. I like that we can make mistakes, unlike being onstage, where you can't.

TV has taken a crazy turn, especially in the industry of food, where everything is either a competition show or a sort of reality show. We've lost the kind of shows that are, like, 'Here's how you do this,' like the old Julia Child shows.

The great thing about film is you start and finish. It's a journey that lasts so long, TV lasts a long time.

When you see the American chat shows, they've got so many ideas about what they could with the guests. I did stand-up on 'Jimmy Fallon' and they had loads of sketches and ideas, we don't tend to do that here.

It's always been about when I do theater, the audience is just a viewer, not taking part in what's onstage. Whereas if you're doing stand-up, it's inclusive.

I just don't know that a TV show demands a movie ending.

I feel like with a movie you know your whole journey, and even though little minutiae might change, you're able to get a better idea of where you're going, whereas TV is engaging a different side of your brain.

In ECW, the fans would warm me up. I'd walk around the ring and slap hands with everyone and get ready for the match. I'd feed off that energy, I would use that to create positive energy. In WWE, it's different. It's a timed show; everything is timed. We know - when we get to the ring, we know when there's a commercial.

Performing music is a way to do comedy, but without the obligation to do a solid hour, hour and half of a standup. I could intersperse it with music, so it became a really good format for me.

Cable is a great medium. It's something I respond to. I'm not doing sitcoms. People don't find me funny. That's just the way it is.

That's the thing about TV: it gives you so much time to tell your story; it's comparable to comics.