Jason Gann Quotes

I think Canadian humor is a little less broad than American humor.

I don't tend to watch too many American comedies. I love British comedy.

I mean, yeah, I'm sure that Python and the other things have paved the way for a greater understanding of the British sense of humor, but I don't think it's all that different than the American sense of humor.

I think the Canadian sense of humor is dryer than America's and juicier than Britain's. I think it's a cross between the two of them, really.

Maybe there's a sort of veneer of optimism about U.S. comedy, whereas perhaps in England, we don't mind ending it on a sourer note.

I feel American comedy is a little too light. World cinema, and Latin cinema, is much more comfortable with darker emotions.

I thought I had more of a European sense of humour than the average American comic.

When I first started watching stand-up, I fell in love with American comedy before British comedy.

My influences were Peter Sellers and the great British character actors.

There is certainly a higher percentage of wit in British comedy than in American comedy. What always tickles me is the way in which people try to use their intellect to get themselves out of tricky situations but never quite manage to do so - much to their enormous embarrassment.

Americans just don't understand dry wit.

A lot of my comic influences are distinctly American: Woody Allen and Bob Hope, for example. They were always the underdogs who were using wit to sort of battle their way through. And it seems to me that a lot of contemporary U.S. comedies are shot through with losers. None of the characters in 'The Big Bang Theory,' for instance, are studs.

The British are so funny.

In Canadian comedy, you'll almost never see guns. If you bring a gun into a scene, it's like, 'Whoa! Wow, how are we going to deal with that!' Guns in an American comedy are a given. Violence in America is used in a much more cavalier way.

Brits have a better sense of humor in most ways. It's darker, more cutting.

Californians don't have that marvelous British cynicism, but then the British can be so patronizing at times.

Comedy is not commercial; it is risky, because what is funny in one place isn't always funny somewhere else.

You know, I think British comedy is very smart comedy. You don't get too much dumb comedy over here. Or at least I haven't seen it. If I'm wrong about that, I apologize to all the dumb comedy makers over here.

The Americans all love 'The Holy Grail', and the English all love 'Life Of Brian', and I'm afraid on this one, I side with the English.

I think American guys tend to be a bit more forward, a bit more chatty and open than the Brits. The Brits seem to have a darker sense of humor, though I have met some Americans who have adopted bits of the British dry sense of humor as well.

Texas humor and Southern humor are pretty similar.

I just watched a ton of comedy and saw a ton of different styles, and eventually you think, 'Oh, yeah, I could be like that.'

The mistake British comedians often make is trying to beat the Americans at their own game - getting visiting American singers on their shows, talking about 'sidewalk' instead of 'pavement,' sitting on high stools in a white dinner jacket doing ballads. That way, you simply end up with a mid-Atlantic mishmash.

Eventually I was saying to myself, maybe it would be better, instead of trying to become an American comedian in France, to mix those two styles and those two genres. Because of course it's good to be efficient and sharp, and to have a joke every twenty seconds, but it can be a little cold and dry.

A lot of British comedy feels foreign rather than feeling universal.