I've always maintained that I don't think comedy should be reviewed. I think it's un-reviewable, because it is so subjective.
Playing on stereotypes was meant to be humorous. If it doesn't tickle you in certain spots, it's not going to be funny. Falling down the stairs is a seriously dangerous thing, but watching it is HILARIOUS!
I remember watching 'The Muppet Show' in the '70s. I was six or seven, and my dad watched it with me, and my grandparents watched it with me, and we're all laughing throughout, but I think we were probably laughing at different things.
I don't control the line of 'funny,' 'funny,' 'funny,' 'not funny.'
There's no such thing as too far. If it works it's funny, if it doesn't work it's too far, it's stupid. Really there's no such thing as "too far." You're joining the politically correct when you use words like "too far." You don't want to join the army of politically correct.
When you do comedy, you can't please the world, although I'd like to think that most of my audiences were on my side.
One of the great things with comedy is that there's no such thing as a mediocre comedy; it's either uproarious or crap. That's the problem.
It's fine if folk don't like my sense of humour. But if somebody misunderstands, then that hurts a bit.
The trick is always to write in pairs because if at least two people find it funny, you've immediately halved the odds of it not being funny.
Everybody's got a different sense of humor. It's just different styles.
What a strange world this would be if we all had the same sense of humor.
There's always going to be someone as funny as you or funnier.
What's funny is funny. It doesn't matter what expense it's at. There are people who don't like that and I understand.
I am much more likely to care about someone trying to be funny and give them some credit for whatever he or she did that was remotely funny than I am to be mused by somebody declaring this isn't funny, that isn't funny, this sucks. If you want to write humor, you're going to have to get used to that.
I've never found kicks to the groin particularly funny, although recent work in the genre of the buddy movie suggests audience research must prove me wrong.
The whimsicalness of our own humor is a thousand times more fickle and unaccountable than what we blame so much in fortune.
To me, what separates a funny movie from a good movie is something personal.
I mean comedy is something that's very personal and people have strong opinions about.
When we were doing 'Viva Variety,' we knew, 'Boy, this really cracks us up, but this is not for everybody. This is a little weird.'
Any joke can be funny, but not any joke is funny. Any joke has the potential to be hilarious to you, but more importantly, the joke has the potential to not be funny to you but to someone else.
People used to make fun of alternative comedy because sometimes it would be someone being funny, and sometimes it was a crazy man with a flute making no sense. And it's very easy to be like, yeah, that's not really comedy.
Not everybody agrees on what's funny, obviously.
The major caveat in all of comedy is that it's all instinctive. There's no true criteria. There is no right or wrong. Ultimately, often I'm surprised at what an audience will or will not laugh at. I have to stay very, very open to an audiences first exposure to that material and how they react to it.
I learned pretty early is I never defend my material; it's for other people to if someone is offended. It's so subjective, and if you don't find it funny, it's definitely going to be offensive.
I'd probably be better off without trying to satisfy me, with my sense of humor. There are things that I have said that are funny to me, but they weren't to somebody in the press. So that hasn't worked to my benefit.
