Humor Adaptation Quotes

Most people don't know that I am an accomplished dramatic actor... But I've performed in several Shakespeare productions including Hamlet, except in this version, Hamlet lives in an apartment with two women, and has to pretend he's gay so that the landlord won't evict him.

Comedy taste changes. It only changes slightly, but there's always a different angle, a different attitude.

Comedy has changed with the times, thank God - slowly, oh my lord, slowly - but it has.

I've definitely become smuttier. When I first started out, I had these aspirations: 'I'm not going to do jokes about anything crude because I'm bigger and better than that.' But then, I don't know... It makes me laugh, so I started doing it.

Things are more complex today, and I think humor has changed a a great deal. People are more sensitive today.

I've dropped a lot of race humor from my routines, not because I think it is in bad taste, but because I don't want to be guilty of telling old jokes.

That's the nature of comedy. You always want to be improving and growing and changing with what's happening in the world. That's when comedy is most effective.

If I think of a joke that's really dirty and I think it's funny I'll try it but what I've found over the years is they just don't laugh. It doesn't work coming out of my mouth so it's like they taught me 'don't do that. Don't go that way or you'll lose me.'

When I say, 'I can't stay long, I'm in-between meals,' that plays differently on the radio than it does in person. So I have to pick material that works because the words are funny, not just because of the images.

For me and most of my friends who are comedians, if you've been doing comedy for a while, your tolerance for things actually moves. I find it very hard to be shocked, and when other people aggressively take offense to something, I'm sometimes confused.

I was being laughed at. I hated it, so I made an adjustment to control the situation. All comics learn that.

I usually tame my off-kilter sense of humor for novels.

But I think our humour is exactly the same today. Only, we've made rules now. We've said we are not going to do prosthetic make-up scenes, because when they take it off half your face comes off.

It's fun when the writers start writing jokes to you, but also it's fun when the writers will come to you and say 'Hey, listen, we're working on this story and we need to know if you speak any foreign languages.' And I said 'No, I don't. I speak a little Spanish, but I can learn a foreign language.' And they go 'Okay, do you think you can learn Portuguese?' And I go 'Yeah, whatever it takes. If it's funny, I'll do it.' So of course I start looking online and learning Portuguese, and as it turns out, I get the script and it's now Serbian.

You need to tune into a different way of being funny for kids. They're learning the rhythm of a joke.