Baron Vaughn Quotes

I grew up watching Letterman, 'Seinfeld,' 'SNL,' and Monty Python movies. But nothing made me want to get into comedy more than when 'Mr. Show' started airing.

I pray to the shrine of 'Mr. Show.' It saved sketch comedy.

I was inspired by comedy channels. I loved that they got to do sketches and could be funny and crude and make people laugh. But most of those channels, if not all of them, were done by guys.

I remember being captivated by Steve Coogan and Eddie Izzard and wanting to do what they did. That generation of comedians was my main influence.

I mean, 'Kids In The Hall' is the reason I have any career at all.

I definitely am a huge lover of comedy, and it's only through doing so many comedies that I've realised how much of an influence they've been on me.

I like doing them and they're ridiculous and the actors can improvise a lot, and they don't have to be really realistic characters that hit a very specific tone as in a feature film. They're really fun, I want to make more of them definitely.

I wasn't one of those kids who stole Richard Pryor records. I wasn't a comedy-nerd kid. I had no concept of stand-up. Actually, the only inkling of stand-up I had was I read one of Paul Reiser's books when I was, like, 12. I found it at a yard sale, and I carried it around with me for six years.

As a kid I would watch 'SCTV,' 'Saturday Night Live,' 'Monty Python' and 'The Kids in the Hall,' and be amazed that these guys got to be different people every week. It spoke to the acting side in me.

I've just written this six-part sketch comedy series, which I've never done before. And I don't know how to pitch it. Am I supposed to just pick up a camera and put stuff on YouTube? Is that how it works?

I was a huge fan of comedy and movies and TV growing up, and I was able to memorize and mimic a lot of things, not realizing that that meant I probably wanted to be an actor. I just really, really amused myself and my friends with memorizing entire George Carlin or Steve Martin albums.

I think of myself as more of a comic person. I don't know about a comic actor.

I think that 'Mr. Show' was a huge influence on me. It was literally the reason I started doing comedy, because I was asked to do a bit at The Comedy Store, and B.J. Porter and I went to see Bob and David - who I'd never heard of - do a live show, which was one of the shows that got them the 'Mr. Show' show.

I'd like to do a comedy, actually. I think it would be great to do a sitcom or something like that. I'm pretty much open to anything.

I'm more influenced by characters than standups. I love strong, comic women because it's so hard, and I have so much respect for anyone who can do it. I'm a big fan of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and people like that.

I was always a big fan of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner's '2000-Year-Old Man' sketch. I think it's one of the biggest influences on the podcast, definitely. You'd never say Carl Reiner was the funniest dude on there, because he's just teeing it up, but he knows what questions to ask to lead to great improv.

I love doing comedy. Absolutely love it. After 'Wedding Crashers,' people suddenly realized that it was something I could do.

I mean, sitcoms shouldn't be doing 'Saturday Night Live.' You can't just do bit after bit after bit. You have to string it together with tight writing and performances. Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to do this.

When someone can, on a worldwide level, make someone laugh, that's power. A lot my heroes - Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, the Wayans, Adam Sandler - they get it. And I've always felt that Andy Samberg is the future of comedy.

Who made me laugh when I was growing was Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, and then moving on, there were so many that I was a writer for for many years: I was a writer for the Smothers Brothers, Lily Tomlin, then I started on 'Saturday Night Live' as the head writer the first year we started it.

I started doing standup because of Hugh Grant's best-man speech in 'Four Weddings,' which is basically a standup routine.

My preference is for people who can do sketch comedy or situational comedy, where it's not a joke, but it's telling a story.

Growing up, there were TV shows that were very funny but very traditional. Classic things like 'Fawlty Towers,' obviously, and 'Blackadder' were pretty traditionally shot. And then there were the ones that start to break the mold or be really ambitious. The ones that spring particularly to mind would be 'The Young Ones.'

Once you're in a room like '30 Rock,' it's a creative setting, so you write more even after you go home, just because you're still in that mode of coming up with jokes. So the job wasn't sapping standup jokes, but it was sapping stand up time and energy, and I wouldn't be able to travel as much.

My experience - and it might be just the kind of comedy that I do, which is usually sketch comedy - is that there's a lot more texture and subplot in drama than in comedy.