Albert Brooks Quotes

Johnny Carson was a big influence on me - all of those shows I did with him over the years, like, 100 of them, they made a bit of a name for me at the time, so that part of my life was very good.

I did standup while still working for Johnny Carson in the mid-'60s, thus gaining the advantage of at least getting laughs from him about how I hadn't the night before.

I was on the Johnny Carson show, I believe 114 or 104 times. And aside from those times on the air, I never spoke to him. I never met him.

I did the Ed Sullivan show four times. I did the Steve Allen show. I did the Jackie Gleason show.

My first appearance as a guest on The Tonight Show was in '81.

I've done great theatre, great films and had a lot of opportunities in television. I also love to sing, and I've been able to do that once or twice in the television shows.

As a kid, I remember wearing a checkered suit and appearing on-stage in the routines worked out by the 'baggy pants' comedians.

We finally got our big break when Ed Sullivan put us on his show.

I was the first to promote The Beatles in the States, and Ed Sullivan called me first about them before he ever booked them on his television show.

Everybody asks, 'How do you do it?' And I'm like, 'Well, I'm recurring on both shows, so the reality is, I can do both shows.' And that's the best position to be in. And 'Heroes' just asked me to come back and do more. So once I stop airing on '24' for a little while, I'll be on 'Heroes,' and then I'll be back on '24.'

I started on 'Saturday Night Live' the same time Conan started on Late Night. We just had a relationship because I would be upstairs in the studio and whenever he couldn't get a guest - which was often back then since he was just starting out - he would just call me down to be a guest.

People see me on the 'Daily Show' or 'About a Boy'. But the reality is that I only got into this business to do standup comedy.

Ed Sullivan brought me to TV first in 1952, then Garry Moore's program gave me a lot of confidence and freedom.

It's funny, I remember doing the Johnny Carson show, and, uh, I couldn't afford my rent.

Now, as a comic, if you're vaguely amusing you can go straight into TV, then you play the O2 and then everyone's sick of you.

I never wanted to do reunion shows for the sake of a reunion show. I've done all the 'Brady Bunch' stuff except for the Variety Show, but when a talk show wants us all to get together for their sake, it's not interesting to me.

I tell jokes for a check; I'm on TV for a check.

In 1980, when I graduated from high school, my goal was to be on 'The Tonight Show' with Johnny Carson at least once before our ten-year class reunion. Our class reunion was in June of 1990, and I was on 'The Tonight Show' in April 1990, so I made it by a few months.

Doing five-minute sets on 'Conan' and things like that are fun and a great way to introduce yourself, but it's such a constricting time, and you usually have to cut bits down.

A young comic, if he's any good, can easily get on 'Carson' or 'Griffin' or 'Dinah Shore,' because they want to say the same thing, that they discovered the new talent.

I've never been on a television show as a regular before.

I was on 'In Search of the Partridge Family,' MTV'S 'Miss Seventeen,' and the comedy 'Love Monkey.'

When I first started out, I kinda just wanted to do comedy stuff, and thankfully, I had a fair amount of success. I've been able to be on, I think, almost virtually every American sitcom.

I was a kid, and I would watch standup comics do the 'Tonight Show,' and if Johnny Carson liked you, he'd wave you over to the desk; that pretty much meant you were about to be the most successful comedian in the country for the next few years.

I remember the first couple of TV things I did, I was really nervous.