Mel Brooks and David Zucker - there are very few people who know silly, and they're usually hugely intelligent, because you have to be intelligent to get it. Like the Marx brothers. I love it.
'Singh Is Bliing' came up to me as my dream role.
Whenever I catch a chunk of an Adam Sandler comedy on cable, it looks as badly shot and goofily tossed off as a Jerry Lewis gag reel once he hit the late downslide with 'Hardly Working' and 'Cracking Up.'
I do love situational comedy, clowning, and slapstick; I approach that with a lot of respect. The goofier you are, it doesn't mean you're going to be funnier.
I feel like I've been watching Irwin Corey forever. I saw him in the 1950s, and I thought he was old then.
I'm not interested in making horror-comedies, but I'm very interested in making scary movies with funny parts.
I think it was somewhere around age 3 when I fell down the stairs at my house, and I got up and did a Jerry Lewis impression and got a big laugh. And I thought, "Oooh, I like that. I think I need to do this for a living!"
I'll come out and say it because no one else will: French gross-out humor is the best. Particularly the illustrated variety.
My great-grandfather was a variety hall comedian called Billy Mack.
I mean, I do love clever and witty, but I think that the 'Three Stooges' were geniuses. They'd have to be for their appeal to have lasted this long.
I love a good Steve Martin, Martin Short scene where they're being super physical - I don't mean to compare myself - but I relate to their type of comedy because they do crazy stuff but come at it in an honest way.
Well, I'm proud to say American Pie was the kind of crazy, gross-out film that guys thought was the greatest.
In earlier years, I was more of a clown with a big bag of tricks. I'd show up in the studio and kind of go, 'Well, what do you want? Do you want the screaming banshee or the howling owl?'
If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs.
As a kid, I saw a lot of scary movies, but they were mixed with comedy, like 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.'
Our comedy is just falling over, funny faces, arguments, all the comedy basics, really.
Generally, we try not to write down to kids. We really just try to write a visual, character-driven cartoon that has a lot of slapstick and really appeals to us. I guess we are just lucky that other adults find that amusing, too.
I think one of the funniest things about '30 Rock' is that Liz Lemon is sort of like Buster Keaton - she's always the fool, the joke is always on her.
I loved Bob Hope and the way he would turn to the camera and break the fourth wall.
I think of Mike Myers as the Buster Keaton of today. I think he's brought us something so special.
For my money, I don't think there's been a better comedy than 'Kung Fu Hustle' in a lot of years. That movie just knocked me over.
If 'Airplane!' comes on, it's like a comfort film. You can always guarantee a laugh watching that movie.
My family is all obsessed with comedy. I grew up watching a lot of comedy in the house. I used to watch Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy with my dad. But my mom is more into slapstick stuff.
Dealing with sketch comedy and buddy teams like Abbott and Costello, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby - I just loved buddy comedies.
I've always loved pure, silly slapstick comedy. It always makes me laugh.
