Steve Allen was on Johnny Carson one time - I looked for it, but I couldn't find it - and he read the lyrics to 'Hot Stuff' by Donna Summer like a poet. He read them very seriously. I was maybe 8, but it killed me.
Neal Brennan
I'm not dripping with charisma like many of my friends are. But I do have candour, which is close.
In true, narcissistic fashion, when my father was diagnosed as a narcissist, he called us all up individually to tell us, and he did it with true pride.
America doesn't have poor people, they have temporarily embarrassed millionaires: meaning there are people who are poor for now but that's all about to end when 'blank' happens, or when the number comes in, or when the invention takes off.
I just love well-organized, very serious nonsense.
Honestly, I've always thought that Charles Barkley is the best guy on TV because he will really tell you what he thinks. But it's all well thought out.
Even at it's worst, 'Def Jam' was extremely interesting and extremely well performed. And the crowds were amazing.
The hardest part of comedy is writing the jokes, and the second-hardest part is telling the jokes. To me, everything else is significantly easier.
I had people think I was brilliant, then 'Half Baked' bricked. They literally look at me like a homeless person.
I don't really have a process. I just get agitated or aroused by an idea in the world, and then I want to give my rebuttal.
It's way more fun to tell jokes for an hour than it is to sit in a room and bash your head against the wall trying to think of sketches.
I think the future belongs to the comedic polymath. It belongs to the person who can generate the most good material in the biggest variety of ways, whether it's sketches or stand-up or songs or tweets or television or films.
Like, I feel like I'm funny, despite the fact that I keep getting rejected by people less funny than me.
You're supposed to not like the 'Austin Powers' movies because people ruin the catchphrases. 'Austin Powers' is so funny.
The Berlin Wall comes down in '89, so then there's basically a vacuum of who was the enemy and then Fox News comes along in '95 and it becomes Democrat versus Republican. Now people on the right are fed a steady diet of anti Democratic party propaganda so they believe Democrats are the enemy and they will not believe anything.
With most specials, even the best comedians will tell you they could have cut 15 or 20 minutes out of it.
It wasn't surprising to me because I've had the conversation with him personally, but Will Smith is more interesting a guy that you could ever capture in a movie or TV show.
I just realized at a certain point that no matter how much writing I did, I'm still a gym rat for comedy clubs.
Like, your body has to get used to being in front of people. Like - and you have to be like - you have to be kind of a ham, you know? Like, the thing about writers is they're generally self - comedy writers - self-loathing, sort of play small. And as a, like, performer, you have to think like a comedy writer but act like a performer.
People doing rhymes that are nonsense - nothing can make me laugh like that.
Someone like Bethany Frankel goes from being, like, 'some lady' to a star with arguably as much charisma as anybody else on TV. I personally find that riveting.
I do have weird habits when I'm directing, or even think as a director, like when I move a cup, I make sure to put it back in the exact right place.
My entryway into hip-hop was - my biggest introduction was obviously like, you know, the Def Jam, Run D.M.C., Beastie Boys, like, that conglomerate.
I think being honest on TV is pretty rare. So if I can be that, I would like to be.
If you just want money and tax cuts and stuff, fine - just stop acting like you're moral.
Being able to write jokes is great, but you still have to get used to performing them and being on stage - and enjoying being on stage, not just like tolerating it.
I always say to Blake Griffin that he has a better comedy career than I do.
Here's the thing about standup directing: not that hard. As I said on Twitter one day, or maybe it was Instagram - sorry, I want to keep my platforms straight - it's essentially the same five shots over and over again. Seven if you're ambitious.
Why marry myself to an entire album? I don't have to. If I download four songs from somebody on an iTunes sojourn, that's about as good as it gets.
I think the biggest influence on my stand-up would be Chris Rock, in that I love that Chris is basically an essayist, in that he'll take a subject and just try and attack it from as many different angles as he can.
You know, like, real paying attention and real observation and deep thought and deep consideration can be a bit, you know, miserable-making.
When you're in a friend circle, you all kind of talk the same way. And it's hard to do on-the-fly radio edits of yourself.
Sentimental is not bad, but it's probably the most likely to go awry. It's the hardest to do and not have it end up being 'Forrest Gump' or something. Maudlin - I just don't want it to be maudlin.
I'm not good at Reddit; I don't go to the most popular parts.
There were some things I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about depression in public, I wanted to talk about being in the shadow of people I've dated and people I worked with publicly.
Whoever is saying the joke is my biggest priority.
I know from doing stand-up, I don't want to do a joke that I don't trust.
It wasn't so much figuring out my voice comedically, because that was always pretty clear. It was more about performing and being a good, watchable performer.
I'm not the easiest dude to work with.
I'm obsessive, I'm a control freak, I get snappy with people.
The thing about comedians is, we're generally pretty smart. So, if we can be smart and funny, that is the victory.
I don't think people understand what comedy is supposed to do. We will observe things, we will make fun of things.
People don't like doing podcasts.
You can say whatever you want, but there's going to be consequences to it.
With '3 Mics', there's nothing I'm talking about that's too hot button.
I get that money is important, and it's scary to think that you won't have enough. At the same time, we can set up reasonable social safety nets and take care of everybody.
I love doing stand up. I think it's a really worthwhile art form. It's so unique in all the things it combines, in terms of it being philosophizing, preaching, speaking truth to power and basic communicating. It's a good way to talk back to the world.
Everyone has some secret and some source of pain or sadness and I just said mine first and then everybody went after me. I get it every day in my Instagram direct messages, people thanking me for talking about depression and telling me how it helped them.
You know, when I was a kid, I used to cry every day, like, when I was like, you know, 7 through 11 or 6 through 11, to the point where my brother and sisters would like - there was an ongoing joke where they would make me cry to keep my streak alive of crying every day.
You know, I liken it to - when you write a joke for somebody else, it's like you - you know, like the Wile E. Coyote dynamite plunger, where he pushes the plunger down and then you see the fuse go then there's an explosion in the distance? That's like writing a joke for somebody. When you tell the joke, you're in the explosion.
