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Most of the stuff I do on the show comes out of me just trying to make my friends laugh.

If I make fun of somebody at my show, believe me, it's something we can all laugh at.

Something about not waiting for the laugh of a laugh track allows you to take lines that otherwise might be seen as just direct jokes, and make them seem realistic.

So many shows don't have laugh tracks now that, when you hear it, it can be slightly jarring.

The one thing I think I've noticed about shows that are supposed to be funny on television is that they've sort of become routinized, so there's an awful lot of mannerisms and joke lines that are sort of there to trigger laughter, rather than give actors a chance to play a moment.

In point of fact, I'm not sure there are too many comedies with laugh tracks anymore. Most of what you hear is live studio audience laughing as a show is filmed. If this prompts you to wonder who those actual human beings are who are laughing at some of this stuff, that is a mystification I share.

That's what I hate about a lot of comedies, when you're hitting a line or making it funny.

You never write a catchphrase; you never write something and say, 'This is going to be a catchphrase.' You just write the show, and then in the course of the show, somebody says something, and for some reason it gets a laugh.

I can never tell when something is funny. I just have to do it onstage and find out.

I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don't laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that's not real laughter.