The first thing you start with when you're trying to write something funny is it has to - it really has to come to you first. I has to be an idea that you have that first makes you laugh, that strikes you as funny.
— Paul F. Tompkins
I think you can make jokes about anything. But you have to accept that there will be people who don't like it. And they are completely within their rights, just as you are completely within your rights to say whatever you want to say. They're within their rights to react how they're going to react.
I long ago vowed, as Batman did before me, never to make fun of stuff that people couldn't help. Because it's (1) easy and (2) not fair. There are plenty of things that people have complete control over that are worthy of ridicule.
I just approach everything by just doing the best job I can do and try to be a pleasant person.
When I started doing stand-up in the late eighties, that was not an uncommon thing, that people dressed for the stage. I've seen that change as time has gone by to where, for me, it's something that people remark on. And that's when I started to really embrace it in a way and get more flamboyant and foppish with the way that I dress.
I love words, and I love that there's so many words available to make a point and to create a picture.
Well 'The Pod F. Tompkast,' as much as I love the result of it, was a really labor intensive show. There's a lot of writing, there's a lot of scheduling, there's a lot of recording - it's not a show that we can necessarily do in one day because there are so many moving parts to it.
A big difference between podcasts and radio is the intimacy. Radio oftentimes feels big and loud. To me, podcasting is closest to that weird late night stuff, whether it's late night love song request lines, or it's some talk radio show where you feel like you're the only person listening to it.
Cake Boss, I guess, has been made aware of my impression and finds it amusing and recognizes that it's not a completely accurate impersonation of who he is in his daily life. He seems to be a good sport about it.
I'm fascinated by people who can keep who they are in the midst of this business, which is all about not only pretending to be other people, but also that perception of who you are and how successful you are and your standing in the business.
Part of our job is to dig deep and rediscover the joy that we had when we were first starting out. Also, when you gain responsibility, if you are the host of a TV show and you have responsibilities as a producer and a writer and so forth, you then have to deal with the mechanics of it, which is not always fun.
Being in Los Angeles, I've had access to some of the best improvisers around and I really study them and what they do. It really it just about listening and what you can add to it.
Obviously a president can't rule as a king and ban all guns. But I think we need a president who is going to make sure that there is gun control and that people still feel like their freedoms are intact.
Elections are so crazy.
Mork, played by Robin Williams, was my introduction to improv, and my first real peek behind the curtain of television production; I had seen Williams riffing on 'The Tonight Show' and soon put it together that certain scenes with Mork were not scripted.
Happy Days,' 'Laverne & Shirley,' 'Mork & Mindy' - it takes no effort at all to conjure, physically, the profound excitement I felt watching these shows in prime time. I remember sitting on the floor, too close to the TV, rapt.
More than just a sobering history lesson, 'Angry Birds' is a beautiful game. It's absolutely lovely.
I've said things that, now, I wish I hadn't said because times have changed and like the me of 15-20 years ago made a joke that I wouldn't make today because I - just because I look at the world differently now, you know. And because the world is different now. And, you know, it's all part of a maturation process, I think, for everybody.
On 'Best Week Ever,' I met a few previous 'Idol' winners, and they were the nicest young people you'd ever want to meet. It is a tribute to them that they emerged from 'Idol's' cynicism factory seemingly without mercury poisoning of the soul.
Nobody held a gun to my head and forced me to write recaps about the tenth season of 'American Idol.' Although I feel like someone must have and I just forgot about it.
The thing you have to be on guard against, more than anything, is self-sabotage. You have to make sure you're not your own worst enemy.
You know, back when I was a kid who wanted to be in show business, everybody on TV wore nice clothes. They were very glamorous when they would be on the 'Tonight Show.' All the dudes wore suits and ties and that just seemed like real show business to me.
I like 'Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period' podcast.
In an effort to devote more time, energy and focus to fewer projects, I've had to make some tough decisions, and one such decision was 'retiring' from 'Speakeasy.'
Comedy Bang! Bang!' has meant so much to me over the years, and has brought me so much and so many new fans.
What I do with impressions, I try not to be mean-spirited. To me, it's just about being silly.
Some people just want to make up the funny things and play pretend.
Ultimately, some of these things I did not get paid for, they did not further my career, they were done just for fun.
When I go in to 'Comedy Bang Bang,' I'll go in most of the time with some beats of where we're going with the idea. Everything else is improvised. Nothing is scripted. A lot of times I'll go in there with nothing and it's just conversation with the character.
It seems the more shallow and mean the candidates are the more they rise in the polls.
When Huell Howser died, James Adomian had done Huell Howser for years. As crazy as that impression was, James genuinely loved Huell Howser.
Fonzie was impossibly cool.
I don't know grammar but I do know that I love playing games on my phone.
How did we kill time before smartphones? I honestly can't recall. I have a vague recollection of flipping through magazines in waiting-room-type situations, but what did we do, say, in line at the post office? Waiting for a bus? Waiting for someone to meet us at a restaurant? I mean, did we just look around or something?
You can make me laugh at a thing that I think is horrific. You can make me laugh at a thing that affects me personally. But if you've done your homework and you've gone about it the right way, it will still be funny.
When the task is mocking pop culture, it's easy to make sarcastic comments and consider the job done. After a while, I began to feel like this route was completely pointless. Talking about silly, inconsequential stuff doesn't mean you can't put some effort into it.
People are going to hire you, or they're not, and there's only so much you can do to hedge your bets.
As much as I love live performance and as much fun as it can be to travel around, it really is nice to be able to stay at home and make a living and pay the mortgage and spend time with my wife.
Just because I have a good vocabulary, I don't think of myself as anachronistic - just because I try not to use the word 'like' every other word.
I consume a lot of podcasts. I'm a voracious podcast consumer.
I always like things that shrink the world for me, that make me feel a strange connection, not just to the person that I'm listening to but to the world.
The ideas that you find funny and the things that you are offering to an audience are tied up with who you are and your soul and your heart.
The old Johnny Carson 'Tonight Show' was great in that he was so good with the guests, and it was not about him. I think he was very smart in realizing 'I have plenty of screentime on this show. I do my monologue and we do sketches and stuff like that.' During the interview, he really made it about trying to bring the best thing out of the guest.
I don't find monkeys inherently funny.
When I started my own podcast, I realized I definitely wanted to do characters.
If you pay attention, stand-up can be great improv training ground. But one of the things that helped me the most was doing warm-up for the 'Mr. Show' tapings way back when.
From a personal standpoint I really like that Bernie Sanders is making so much noise.
I'm not afraid of you, 'American Idol.'
I loved Garry Marshall. The television shows he created in the '80s were the most deeply important entertainment of my childhood.
Look, we have long known that birds and pigs are mortal enemies. That's just the way of the world. Birds hate pigs.
