Scatman Crothers Quotes

'Saturday Night Live' is live television. Nothing can compare to that.

You can go on 'Saturday Night Live' now and not even play live.

I've always really liked theater. It fascinated me. You can create a reality and get people involved in that reality. It takes place in real time.

It's interesting: I went 25 years without watching a single television show. I was one of those people, because I was so inside how a television show was made, if I would turn on somebody else's show, I would sit there and analyze it, like, 'Oh, so they had four hours in this location and had to get out and the number of set-ups, etc.'

I miss that process of getting the script and reading it and working on it. Every actor has their own way of memorizing their lines, and the whole process of starting to work with the other actors and the director, and doing rehearsals, and going to the location, and going through wardrobe.

In the year and a half I was on SNL, I never saw anybody ad lib anything. For a very good reason - the director cut according to the script. So, if you ad libbed, you'd be off mike and off camera.

I enjoy that with theater, you can just go into a room with a paper bag lunch: there're no cables, no electricity. It's the purest experience.

I'm an 'SNL' junkie, and being backstage and seeing how it works behind the curtain for a couple days was something I'll never forget.

If you drop a line in the theatre, you can usually find a way round it. But you can't do that as easily on television - you're in the hands of too many people.

I love working in TV. And I love the adrenaline of hosting things like 'Access Hollywood' with, like, zero preparation and just going straight on.

Mork, played by Robin Williams, was my introduction to improv, and my first real peek behind the curtain of television production; I had seen Williams riffing on 'The Tonight Show' and soon put it together that certain scenes with Mork were not scripted.

The thing that's helped me from wrestling is sometimes when you do live television, things change immediately, so you can be immersed in one story and then the story shifts. Ultimately, if you just get the point of what you're trying to accomplish, if you know the story, then you can put forth a good product.

I like a performance, a live performance, so I like little mistakes because that's what makes perfect - the mistakes.

On stage, you rehearse for five weeks, and it goes out to 300 people. In 'EastEnders,' you get ten minutes to rehearse, and seven million people watch it!

Unlike movies, on stage there are no second chances. Everything is live. If someone messes up, forgets a line, gives the wrong cue, you need to have the presence of mind to move the play along.

I had great fun in the 'BroomCupboard,' learning the skills of live TV.

Theatre is a living organism. You only know if your show is working when you see it with an audience. You can also tell when it isn't working - it's horrible, and you desperately try to figure out how to make it connect.

In films, there is no scope to rectify any mistake... but in theatre, you can rectify it the next day.

I was hired as an assistant at 'SNL' in 2002.

In theater acting, you leave that night and what it was is what it was.

You'd need to polish your skills as you only get one chance. In cinema, retakes are possible but in theatre, there are none.

Drumming is a real part of my live show, and I like to do it because so many people aren't expecting me to go and do it.

The thing is that, not only do you learn so much about being in front of a camera and stuff being on 'Monday Night RAW,' but at the same time, I'm not really acting on 'Monday Night RAW.'

No matter what town we went to, if there was a comedian playing, I'd go watch.

I like the fact that in the theatre nothing is ever finished because you're going to do it all over again tomorrow, whereas in telly once it's wrapped and in the can, that's it.