Ronnie Corbett Quotes

Taste in comedy, like fashion, changes all the time.

Obviously comedic styles do change.

I've definitely become smuttier. When I first started out, I had these aspirations: 'I'm not going to do jokes about anything crude because I'm bigger and better than that.' But then, I don't know... It makes me laugh, so I started doing it.

I've dropped a lot of race humor from my routines, not because I think it is in bad taste, but because I don't want to be guilty of telling old jokes.

I used to do much shorter jokes a lot more.

That's the nature of comedy. You always want to be improving and growing and changing with what's happening in the world. That's when comedy is most effective.

Comedy is like music; it builds on itself. Once someone comes up with a theory or a different way of doing things, people start to mimic it on some level. That's why you go back to the guys you loved in the 80s... and it just seems tired now, because it was all foundation.

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.

There was a sea of change in comedy in the late 1950s and '60s. We were dealing with vignettes as opposed to jokes. We were more socially aware.

Colombian humor is very black, very sarcastic.

I think that for the most part, when I started doing comedy, it had become very commercialized.

When I turned about 12 or 13, I realised that being funny wasn't about remembering jokes. It was about creating them.

In terms of comedy, there was a Seinfeldian era of comedy that I love but got played out. Seinfeld was great, but then after him it was people acting like Seinfeld and making observations that we felt like we'd kind of heard before, and then you're seeing Seinfeldian comedy in commercials. Suddenly everything is observational funniness.

I think as time goes by you'll get female comics who are weirder - you'll get a female Mighty Boosh.

I feel like there is something about having a copacetic world POV that helps in making a comedy. Like, David Wain has such a particular way of looking at the world. It helps when everyone can see behind his eyes, you know?

Improv seemed to replace stand-up, which was very big before that. Stand-up comedy was real hot in the late '80s and through the '90s.

I think at its best the American sense of humor is the same as the British sense of humor at its best, which is to be wry and ironic and self deprecating.

What they call 'alt-comedy' now is basically what comedy was like in the '80s. People tried different things, and everybody went to the clubs; there was no other place. Then somehow, the clubs became infiltrated by Dice Clay and Carrot Top types.

Light and funny has a more compelling quality when you're younger. But I haven't abandoned the genre: I love falling down; I love Lucille Ball. It's just that a lot of those stories revolve around problems that I can't convincingly portray at this age.

The people in New York - their humor is on a level that goes, uh, very deep, you know?

Well I think comedy everywhere has lost a bit of its bite. In Canada, I can't argue with the quality, but it feels like it's gotten a little safe.

The trend now is to get away from stage bound sitcoms.

'Saturday Night Live' will always be this amazing, powerful behemoth, but it's also not the only thing happening in comedy anymore.

Things are more complex today, and I think humor has changed a a great deal. People are more sensitive today.

My humor was Victorian - and still is.