Timeless Comedy Quotes

My idol was Jack Benny and he was the master of subtlety and timing.

My idol growing up was Charlie Chaplin. I was obsessed with him. I mean, while other kids were watching Jim Carrey and the likes in the '90s, I was watching Charlie Chaplin films, because I was a bit of a geek. I became obsessed with this idea of physical comedy.

The thing that everybody loves about the 'Burnett Show' was that you felt like you were really there - all that fun stuff stayed in the show, and I think that's why everybody remembers it so fondly because that just doesn't happen anymore on television.

Like everyone is either, "I grew up with it," or "I loved it," or loved them now. And when you watch The Muppet Movie now, it is so current. It's like The Simpsons before The Simpsons. It's not as cynical as The Simpsons would be but it's self-aware and there are a billion jokes, it breaks the fourth wall every five minutes, it's astounding, it's awesome. It's very exciting to be a part of that.

With a play, you do it and it's gone. Films always date. Television drama always dates. Television comedy, for some reason, seems to go on.

'Mean Girls' stands the test of time as one of the greatest comedies ever produced. I've seen it way too many times, and I just think it's the most brilliant thing ever written. I love it so much.

My humor was Victorian - and still is.

I laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes.

You've no idea how good an old joke sounds when you take it out again after a rest of five or six hundred years.

The success of I Love Lucy is something that happens only once in a lifetime, if you are fortunate enough to have it happen at all.

What's funny is funny. The same thing that made you laugh a hundred years ago makes you laugh now.

The true and lasting genius of humour does not drag you thus to boxes labelled 'pathos,' 'humour,' and show you all the mechanism of the inimitable puppets that are going to perform. How I used to laugh at Simon Tapperwit, and the Wellers, and a host more! But I can't do it now somehow; and time, it seems to me, is the true test of humour. It must be antiseptic.

I can't begin to tell you how fulfilling the perennial nature of 'Elf' on television has been for me. It's great to be able to connect parents with children both emotionally and through humor.

First and foremost when you're doing comedy, you gotta be relevant and applicable to the times that you're living in. When you try and just do comedy about who is dating who and lifestyle jokes, it gets tiring after a while. It's hard to be funny in that realm.

Laurel and Hardy are among my strongest influences, and I think they're perfect examples of two naive, kid-like characters that are still funny today. In fact, they're a lot like SpongeBob and Patrick, walking around in their own little world and causing a fine mess.

Anything with the power to make you laugh over thirty years later isn’t a waste of time. I think something like that is very close to immortality.

Friends often tell me how much their grandchildren enjoy 'Are You Being Served?' It doesn't matter that they were not even born when it was broadcast, or that they belong to a very different world.

I feel like Superbad and Freaks And Geeks are somewhat timeless. That's always gratifying, when you feel like 30 years in the future, people will still get it, and it won't seem creaky. It won't come across like The Incredible Mr. Limpet.