JONATHAN KRISEL

Things that people are doing constantly but aren't thinking about. That's the ultimate 'Portlandia' concept.

Everything on TV is perfect, and it's so boring.

I always look at 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.' They talked about how they wrote this movie with horses, and then they realized that horses are super-expensive and time-consuming. 'Why don't we just change it to coconuts?' That's part of my process.

When you make a pilot, you've never seen the show before; you don't know what it is.

If you have, especially with siblings, something like the competition for mom's affection, it just never goes away.

I went to film school, and I came in when video art was king, weird stuff was king, and there, you don't have a script as your bible.

With comedy, I've always had a pretty good sense of what I like and how to execute it well, but drama has its own rules.

I saw Sleater Kinney perform back when I was in college.

I'm a huge 'Twin Peaks' fan.

I want to work with extremely, genuinely charismatic people.

I look at a show like 'Roseanne.' That's super influential on me. It's very funny, very real, with real problems. That was a big influence, and I don't know if you see that all the time in the network world.

Once the big lights come in, you can feel self-conscious. How can you capture the scene without ruining it and freezing people up? You keep it small and lean.

With all the outlets, if you have a strong comedic voice, there's a venue to do your thing. It's a bit of a meritocracy, where the best stuff rises to the top.

The Internet is a good way to try some stuff with no big crew and no money being spent. Since there are no stakes to it, you can try to be a little experimental.

I definitely feel the pressure to keep things fresh and original.

I'm not a big 'scripted comedy' person necessarily. I'm open for wherever comedy can be found.

Portland is utopia. My favorite thing would be it's earnestness. I am earnest, too.

When people feel vulnerable, they make slapstick decisions.

In your twenties, you might want to be radical and change the world, but in your thirties, you might just want to be happy and ground yourself.

One second here and there will make all the difference between something being funny and not being funny. That's why I like going, 'Well, we wrote that six months ago, and it was funny one time we read it, but it's not funny anymore. So what? Just dump it.'

Comedy is like horror - you have to shock something in the viewer's system to make them feel it.

Nobody sets out to be evil. They're insecure, and they make bad decisions.

It's exciting being in the present. You're always reading emails, talking about the future, looking at pictures on Facebook of the past. But living in the present? It's almost a dead medium. I almost want to do a sketch about being in the present.

I know comedy; I know how to do crazy, off-the-wall stuff that makes me laugh out loud.

I think any person who is starting out in a creative endeavor is not going to be good at it right out of the gate.