Michael Showalter
For me, Twitter works best as a way of taking pictures of being stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. If people really want to read really funny quips about life, parenting, and pop culture, then by all means read Michael Ian Black's tweets.Collection: Parenting
A lot of my humor centers on the act of telling jokes and I think this can prevent certain audiences from suspending their feeling of disbelief. It might piss a few people off, but I can't help it.Collection: Humor
Cats aren't cooperative in the same way that other animals are. You can train a dog to act, but you can't train a cat in the same way.
I went to college thinking of maybe pursuing a career in film criticism.
I've always loved going to see Broadway shows. I've seen 'em all: Rent, Chorus Line, Cats, West Side Story, Guys & Dolls, Wicked, you name it!
I am a big proponent of writing a great outline. That way you can avoid hitting a roadblock. There is no worse feeling than writing yourself into a corner but if you've figured it all out in the outline then you won't have that problem.
I'm not sure why I like cats so much. I mean, they're really cute obviously. They are both wild and domestic at the same time.
I like the comedians that go into detail and tell longer stories.
There are comedians that I like. I think a lot of it, you just figure out on your own. It's definitely one of those things that you get good at by doing it a lot. But I like Jim Gaffigan. Patton Oswalt. Janeane Garofalo.
I tend to a lot of improvisational ranting, and that's fun. For me, stand-up has been, performance-wise, a really good outlet.
I'm not big on fat jokes. That's a little beneath me. I'm not a huge fan of making a joke - and as I say this, I'm sure I do it - completely at someone else's expense.
You really have no idea whether or not what you're writing is funny. In stand-up and sketch comedy, you know right away and you can make your changes accordingly.
I've always balked at anything that feels like a clique, even if it's not always in my best interest to do so. I like each individual, fedora-wearing hipster - it's just the greater gestalt that rubs me the wrong way.
Given the current state of publishing, I think it helps to have a brand name on the cover of your book. Comedians are proven commodities with built-in audiences. They may not have the writing chops of a Dave Eggers, but they're salacious and funny and self-reflective.
I think narcissists are endlessly watchable. The way they view the world and the way they interact within the world.
I think comedians see themselves as people among people.
In real life, comedians aren't funny.
Many fans don't have the leisure time to track my every word. They're too busy brainstorming solutions to the economic crisis and winning Pulitzers.
I mean, do you really think Paul Krugman is checking his Twitter account every day to read what I write? Of course not. Every other day maybe, but not every day.
Love is such a confusing word. You think I'm joking but I'm not.
I knew that if I was going to write a book, I was going to have to read one, too.
In my perfect world order, it is cold all the time. Everyone wears sweaters and drinks coffee. People don't speak to each other; they read the newspaper. There is no loud music, and cats are in charge.Collection: Coffee
I think gay people deserve all the same rights as everybody else, it's just that marriage is specifically for a man and a woman.Collection: Gay
I calculated that if I wrote five pages a day, which seemed very doable, I would have an 1,800-page first draft when the deadline rolled around. Though completely unwritten, I was very impressed with how long my first draft would be.Collection: Long
Maybe in 10 years,I'll only be doing "classical" comedy. Or crashing my car into trees.Collection: Car
I like doing all different types of comedy - stand-up, sketch, movies, TV. I like to try everything.Collection: Trying
I just made a movie. There's a kind of a banter that some people might recognize as being screwball. There are no cell phones, no DVD playersit's set in a timeless Brooklyn. Hopefully, it's a good, old-fashioned movie.Collection: Phones
Cats are unpredictable because they're wild and domestic at the same time. Watching a cat's behavior is like a small window into the wild.Collection: Cat
If your dad is anything like mine, then you have no clue what to buy him for Father's Day. The only Father's Day tradition in my family is the annual conversation he and I have where I say, 'Hey, Dad, what do you want for Father's Day this year?' and he says, 'Nothing.' Then I ask my mom what I should get him and she says, 'He likes sandalwood soap, dangly jewelry and Chanel No. 5 perfume.'Collection: Mom
I feel like marriage is a sacred institution that should only be between a man and a woman. If a gay couple wants to be married, why can't they just be satisfied with a civil union? Why do they have to get "married"?Collection: Couple
I'm not big on fat jokes. That's a little beneath me. I'm not a huge fan of making a joke completely at someone else's expense. Even though I think he does it better than anyone else, I don't love... Well, it's different with Sacha Baron Cohen, but that whole thing where you're "punking" people? I don't like that. I don't like doing it, and I don't particularly find it funny when the joke is on a person who doesn't know they're being set up.Collection: Thinking
Will Ferrell is probably the funniest comic actor, certainly of my generation. I am a huge, huge Will Ferrell fan. I'm not a huge comedy buff, truthfully. What I find funny is either something unbelievably stupid, like Dumb And Dumber or Airplane!, where the jokes are just so stupid and pointless, or something like The Office or The Comeback, where the humor is in the excruciating awkwardness of a situation. Stella kind of explores both of those, stupidity and awkwardness.Collection: Stupid
I like silly things. I think that "silly-stupid" or "stupid-smart" might be my philosophy, which is to combine a veneer of intelligence with an undercurrent of crass stupidity. Sometimes that stupidity is in the form of the actual joke that's being told, or it could be in the way the joke is told. Like, repetition is really stupid, but it's really funny. Or it could be that the punchline itself is stupid.Collection: Philosophy
I am very athletic, actually, and I'm good at most sports. But I was never a successful athlete, because I have a lot of trouble with authority. To be a good athlete, you have to have sort of a military attitude. You have to enjoy being coached, and that was not something I ever liked. But more than that, I don't like practice, and coaches hate anybody that doesn't like practice. If you saw me throwing a football, you'd say, "Wow, he knows how to throw a football." But put me on a field, I'm not gonna stand out.Collection: Sports
I know more about sports than I know about any other subject, unfortunately. I'm embarrassed to admit that.Collection: Sports
I'm writing a memoir. I'm four pages in. I start with my first memory, which is kicking my uncle in the balls. I was four.Collection: Memories
The only Train song I like is the one that I play in my act "Drops Of Jupiter". Sheryl Crow has three or four songs that I like; also Dave Matthews Band. With those particular musicians, it's more that there are a few songs that I like rather than their entire body of work. There are a lot of indie bands that I like too. I'm not a snob about music. Does the fact that I like Stephen Sondheim and Broadway musicals make me a fake? Does the fact that I'm "the Billy Joel of comedy" mean that I don't have indie-rock credibility?Collection: Song
A big reason why we were able to and have been able to continue to succeed is that we had a very intense work ethic, right from the beginning. There was a do-or-die attitude toward the work. It wasn't seen as a little "club." It was like, "This is your life." We would spend hours and hours rehearsing and endlessly rewriting. We took it very seriously right off the bat. And we were also extremely critical of each other, which was another thing that was unique. A lot of comedy ensembles have a hard time being critical of each other, because they don't want to hurt each other's feelings.Collection: Hurt
I was kind of in an experimental phase with The Disposable Rappers. This is boring to me, because it's true, but when I was a sophomore in high school, I visited my sister in college and saw an improv troupe, and that was a genuine moment for me. It was an actual "Aha!" moment. After I saw that, I said, "I want to do comedy." So The Disposable Rappers started doing improv in addition to rapping, and when I went to college, I very specifically went saying "I want to join a comedy group."Collection: Rap
I don't audition for "on-air" commercials - the ones where your face can be seen. I've auditioned for voiceover campaigns that I haven't gotten, but I don't really want to be seen in a commercial unless it's a product that I really love. Like, if Adidas asked me, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I did a Reebok commercial, one for Pep Boys, one for Dunkin' Donuts. I auditioned for commercials, but I really couldn't stomach it. It just didn't feel right.Collection: Boys
I don't personally feel comfortable performing in a comedy club, mainly because as an audience member, I've never enjoyed that experience. It feels a little bit theme-park-ish to me, in that it's a club whose product is comedy. I find that weird. It's like those specialty chocolate stores, where everything is chocolate. It's too specific. I like going somewhere that specializes in variety.Collection: Chocolate
That's the thing that most people don't realize. In real life, comedians aren't funny. They save it. They save it up.Collection: Real
I think narcissists are endlessly watchable. The way they view the world and the way they interact within the world. They have no concept of their behavior or how it might be affecting other people. So comedically, it's a very fun type of character to play. They are bulls in a china shop, twenty-four seven.Collection: Fun
One of the things that is always difficult about a collaboration is that you don't necessarily find the same thing funny. And so the challenge becomes, how do you tell the other person that you don't think something's funny? The best collaborations tend to be when you are willing to be told that. But there's also ego involved, and so there's a lot of frustration in knowing that you're writing something, and the other person, on some level, needs to think that it's funny.Collection: Writing