John Major Quotes

I was very sad to hear of the death of Ronnie Barker, who was such a warm, friendly and encouraging presence to have when I started in television. He was also a great comic actor to learn from.

I don't have moments of weakness. I'm Rik Mayall.

I'm a huge, huge fan of Chris Morris. I think he's a genius, and it is not a word I use very often. I think he's fantastic.

Peter Sellers is my great comedy hero.

Ronnie Barker was a man whom I thought more deserving of a knighthood than me.

I consider myself a disciple of Norman Lear. And one of the things he did was topic-driven humor.

Robin [Williams] was a world treasure. As we mourn his tragic death, we must remember him for the great waves of laughter that he was able to illicit from us, how his humor and insights - though they came from a place of pain and uncertainty - connected us and reminded us of how flawed and fragile...how human we are. How we are capable of moments of inspired transcendence and others of unspeakable despair.

I hate shows, personally, where people stand around tossing stuff at each other, and any character can say any line, because you don't believe any of these characters care for each other. I used to fight with my friends who wrote on 'Seinfeld,' because they had such great pride in saying it was a show about nothing.

Martin Lawrence is one of my comedic heroes, and he's a genius.

Growing up, I watched shows such as 'Blackadder' and 'Monty Python' with my parents.

TV is so seductive with a great workday. You're going to work and making people laugh, and that's fantastic.

If you want good sketches, go pick up Sid Caesar. The best of Your Show of Shows. That's the greatest sketch comedy you'll ever see on television.

The person I have admired the most in comedy terms would be Eric Morecambe, who is my total hero.

Emperor Sid Caesar is gone to eternity himself now. He takes with him the gratitude of every one of us who first learned the relief of laughter from this genuinely great performer.

I think with Sky and BBC Three and Channel 4, there are some great television platforms, and the stand-up movement in this country is phenomenal. It's like rock n' roll here. Britain's a funny place and there's a lot of funny people coming out of there and a lot of people are finding mediums to express themselves.

No one will ever be as good as Phil Hartman. He was such an amazing genius, and may be the best sketch performer of all time.

I loved Lucille Ball growing up.

British comedy fans go crazy.

Eddie Izzard is absolutely brilliant. I would love to write something for him.

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.

When I do watch things, they tend to be a lot of comedies. I actually like some of the British comedy series. But, on the whole, I'm not a huge viewer of anything.

I'm a huge Groucho fan. There were some great comic minds that would transfer into any generation, and Groucho is certainly one of them.

The original Dean Martin Comedy Hour handed me some hysterical sketches. I've got highlights on tons of these variety shows, given to me by their great writers. I'd love to be doing all that again.

Dad loved movies, and I grew up with British comedy. My ultimate favourite is Peter Sellers.

I grew up watching British comedy on TV, really.