When Richie Cunningham drank too many beers, his parents sat him down and explained their concerns. If you live on this earth, you find out that we are all the same.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Well, when I was growing up it was Ozzie and Harriet on TV - nobody's parents were like that.
My dad's more three-dimensional than Opie Taylor or Richie Cunningham. He even has a temper! He's a real person. But some people are disappointed by that.
Richie and Eddie couldn't exist without each other. They're two halves of the same person.
Dad was just an emotional wreck. He was drinking a lot of the time, he was smoking a lot of pot. And because he takes certain medications, the drinking was making him... you know, he wasn't even present, really.
When I was on TV in the '80s, I wasn't thinking, 'There's a 10-year-old kid watching this and in 15 years, he's gonna be doing stuff that was influenced by me.' I was trying to get my five minutes together. So now that those people are comedians and they're influenced by me - it's bizarre.
Everybody gathered at my Aunt Hannah's house, and we sat around and talked, ate, drank and told lies. That's what people do, and I just sat there and listened.
The conundrum that I face on a daily basis is that I have two sons who have grown up watching 'The Simpsons,' so they know exactly what buttons to push. They know how Bart irritates Homer, and they use these lines against me to tell me that I'm not funny anymore.
The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.
In 1970, television ate my family. The Andy Warhol prophecy of 15 minutes of fame for any and everyone blew up on our doorstep.
Blessed with Mom and Dad's remarkable genes, raised on big words and big, iconoclastic attitudes, Larry and I, before entering kindergarten, knew who we were, what we wanted, and how we would get there.