American Comedy Quotes

I thought I had more of a European sense of humour than the average American comic.

I like Louis C.K., Chris Rock. Old schools like Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy.

British comedy - which has been a big inspiration to me for many years - is very different to Australian comedy and different again to American comedy.

I grew up with 'Roseanne'; I kind of adore her and stuff like' Home Improvement', really traditional American stuff.

Nihilism in American comedy came along way before 'The Simpsons.' There was a fairly nihilistic point of view to 'Saturday Night Live,' for instance, back in the beginning, and a lot of really dark comedy had a really anti-sentimental take on life.

A lot of my comic influences are distinctly American: Woody Allen and Bob Hope, for example. They were always the underdogs who were using wit to sort of battle their way through. And it seems to me that a lot of contemporary U.S. comedies are shot through with losers. None of the characters in 'The Big Bang Theory,' for instance, are studs.

Ice Cube went straight outta Compton to hearing, 'Are we there yet?' Eddie Murphy blew up striding across the stage in a red leather ensemble that would have made Elvis Presley chuckle, yet is probably best known to anyone born in the 21st century as the overly chatty donkey from 'Shrek.'

I have friends at home who love 'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon. They live in the U.K., and they've never seen an episode, but they love it.

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

I always loved comedy growing up - Bob Hope, Red Skelton and Danny Kaye.

I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of Steve Carrell and Tina Fey for years.

Only in America could you get away with the kind of comedy I did.

I've been watching the 'Richard Pryor Show' for NBC made during the '70s. I'm a big fan of his work.

I guess there's nothing funny about a guy who looks conservative and has it all together, but it's satisfying to see a conservative guy crumbling inside, and I think a lot of American comedy has cottoned on to that.

I love Jerry Lewis. I loved Jim Carrey when I was younger, and Mike Myers and Phil Hartman, all the 'Saturday Night Live' people in the late '80s.

I don't know about you, but I can never get enough David Letterman.

I'll tell you the truth; I wanted to leave me for Sid Caesar.

I think comedy in the last 5-7 years is as good as it's ever been in America. I like it when people push it. You go through periods where people did not push the envelope. The more you push it, the funnier you get.

I mean, yeah, I'm sure that Python and the other things have paved the way for a greater understanding of the British sense of humor, but I don't think it's all that different than the American sense of humor.

'Leave It To Beaver' is a fairly famous show in America, but I don't think it travelled. It was one of those typical '50s family comedies. I was in the pilot episode as sort of the dark presence: my character was called Eddie Haskill.

I have no idea what a British sensibility or a British sense of humor is. I have no concept of what that is. I have no concept of what American sensibility is. I was born in Great Britain, but I was only there for six months, and we moved to Belgium, where I grew up.

When I first started watching stand-up, I fell in love with American comedy before British comedy.

My influences were Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce.

A great deal of American T.V. viewed on Hulu, which is superb - '30 Rock', for instance, is on very good form.

When I was a bit older I had all of the George Carlin records, all of the Steve Martin records, all of the Cheech and Chong records and all of the Richard Pryor records.