Tom Shales Quotes

You look at shows like The Simpsons or Larry Sanders or Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld, they're really sophisticated shows that we all love back home.

I was raised on the purest comedy there is: 'I Love Lucy.' I was raised watching 'Three's Company' and sitcoms of the '70s and '80s.

My goal is for 'The Bill Engvall Show' to be a show the networks look at and say, 'Ooh, maybe we should get back to the family sitcom.'

There was a time when I couldn't watch sitcoms for a while because it was just cacophony, it was just noise.

I think the sitcom is the format for television. It's the essential form, and it represents more of the canon of TV, which is why I latched onto it.

I love watching old sitcoms. It's very inspiring to watch 'Mary Tyler Moore' and 'Golden Girls.' I have watched them over and over again for years.

The Monkees was a straight sitcom, we used the same plots that were on the other situation comedies at the time. So the music wasn't threatening, we weren't threatening.

I love '30 Rock.' Absolutely love it. It's a game-changing show.

I love '30 Rock.' It's one of my favorite shows. It's certainly the gold standard of comedy writing.

I love sitcoms, and I grew up on sitcoms. That's my tasty junk food.

'Leave It to Beaver,' which ran from 1957 until 1963, was one of the strangest, sweetest, most distinctive domestic sitcoms of television's celebrated Golden Age.

There are only about three really, really good sitcoms on the air.

I think multicamera comedy is a much-maligned American art form.

I love 'Cheers.' I didn't watch it growing up, but I watched it getting ready to do the first season of 'New Girl.' It bowls me over every time I see it. The romance, the comedy, the performances - every bit of it is just so compelling.

I watched a lot of old television growing up - a lot of Nick at Nite. I watched 'Rhoda', 'Mary Tyler Moore', and 'I Love Lucy.' Growing up, I loved 'My So Called Life' and was devastated when that went off the air.

I love TV. I think I'd do a half-hour single-camera comedy.

I'd love to do a comedy like 'Bridesmaids;' I think that would be so fun. I would play the Kristen Wiig character.

I would love to see some comedies about loser women.

I guess one that wouldn't be obvious is - well, maybe it's super obvious, I can't tell - 'I Love Lucy' is my favorite show, going back to when I was 4. I've watched every episode I don't know how many times. It was something to watch women being funny when I was young.

I watch the comedy shows like 'Married With Children,' 'Friends,' 'Family Guy,' and 'Everybody Loves Raymond.'

Everyone told me that British sitcom was dead. Then I looked at 'Seinfeld' and 'Frasier' and thought, 'No it's not, it just needs more gags.'

I'm into comedy, stuff like 'The Office,' 'The Royle Family,' 'Only Fools And Horses,' 'Bilko,' that sort of stuff.

I loved 'King of Queens'... You can't spend that amount of time somewhere and not pick that as your favorite.

As much as I loved Pacino and De Niro and wanted to be a dramatic actor, I also grew up on sitcoms. I grew up on 'M*A*S*H' and 'All In The Family' and 'Cheers.' And then around this time - this would have been '95, '96 - I was so into 'Friends' and 'Mad About You,' the idea of being on a sitcom became a very real thing that I wanted.

As a director on 'The Office,' there's a tremendous weight that comes with directing features. I was being asked to direct a show that had already won an Emmy for Best Comedy. Steve Carell and the cast had already won the Screen Actor's Guild Awards.