Comedy Evolution Quotes

I think a lot of studios today are run by women, and we are entering a time when a lot of women have evolved in Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade and wanted to become writers and comedians.

My comedy grows as I grow as a person.

At one point when I was very young, when I was first starting out, I thought, 'Well, one day I'll be able to put all the music away and become a real comedian.' But then I realized there are amazing musical comedians out there, that musical comedy is probably something I'll always want to pursue.

My mom was like, 'Get your law degree first, become a lawyer, and then you can tell jokes on the weekends. You can be a lawyer and just throw jokes into your presentations.' Now she's like, 'Listen, you need to come up with new material.' All of a sudden, my mom's a critic.

When I first started comedy, me and my friends were kids. I claim - although I know that it's a spurious and probably untrue claim - that we were the first generation of kids to act black.

It's a great time to be a comedian because you've got so much more control. You can say what you want to. I think in the old days with the studio system the performer was a bit of an afterthought. You can be a wildcard on the internet. But if you put something on the internet once it's out there it's out there for life.

'Wonder Showzen' is one of my favorite shows of all time. When I first saw it, I thought it was so funny and new and original and edgy and insane and subversive. I didn't know comedy could do that. It redefined what I thought you could do with a TV show.

I don't know if the art of stand-up will survive. Stand-up seems dated. Now you can do a mini-movie or a short with a beginning, middle, and end. A guy standing there seems a little old - especially when you can go on the Internet and see 'Funny or Die.'

I rejected the word humorist for a long time because I thought that it meant you had, like, a cardigan sweater with patches on the elbows, but now I'm old and I do. I grew into that word. I think at heart, all this time, I've been a diarist. I'm not ashamed of it.

I'm really more prolific than most stand-ups. My act changes. I do fold in new experiences, new observations, whatever you want to call it.

When I started out in the late '80s, my act was pretty terrible, and for years, I kind of toiled in obscurity. I don't believe in a hierarchy in comedy; I feel that a person deserves respect the first time they get onstage, and after that, they just have to be funny and get more consistent.

I think comedy has evolved like every art form, and people probably do less standing around and telling jokes, and more things that have to do with reality.

We didn't used to be so precious about women in comedy back in the old days.

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.

I have always felt that the rise of what became known as alternative comedy was born out of the loins of the alternative theatre movement.

I know for myself, every now and again on HBO, they'll show some of the young comedian specials from the '80s and early '90s, and it's just fascinating to watch those comedians - some of whom are people that are world-famous, like Chris Rock or Judd Apatow - to see the jokes that people had, but also, the way everything looked.

In the '90s, comedy was at a very low point, but these days, you've got people like Hannibal Burress, Ron Funches, Maria Bamford - people who can play any club, anywhere.

'Saturday Night Live' will always be this amazing, powerful behemoth, but it's also not the only thing happening in comedy anymore.

There was a sea of change in comedy in the late 1950s and '60s. We were dealing with vignettes as opposed to jokes. We were more socially aware.

When I first got to New York, Comedy Central was the only place to go if you weren't on HBO or network. And then FX, Adult Swim, and other sort of ventures came up, and all of a sudden there were other places to go, and I think Comedy Central is making a concerted effort to become a place where smart, funny weirdoes can come and do their stuff.

Anybody with a sharp brain and a mic can become a comedian, but there's a need to move beyond it. The audience wants to witness the marriage of theatre, comedy and something more.

No one ever thought Clint Eastwood was funny, but he was.

It's not that comedy has changed in terms of what's funny. For me, it's changed in that sometimes I don't feel my finger is on the pulse.

I think that for the most part, when I started doing comedy, it had become very commercialized.

When I was a kid, I would do Andrew Dice Clay jokes for my siblings. Like, we'd be on vacation, and I'd just recite Andrew Dice Clay jokes. They seemed to think that was pretty funny. Then it evolved into 'Wayne's World.'