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I was always a fan of the old-style comics. I loved vaudeville. I loved Milton Berle, Dick Shawn, Phyllis Diller, Don Rickles, Charlie Callas, all those guys. Hilarious. I love the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope movies, and Abbott & Costello. My television influences were 'Monty Python's Flying Circus,' 'Benny Hill,' and 'Hee Haw.'

I was raised with 'Laurel and Hardy' and 'I Love Lucy' and Jerry Lewis, and I just loved it. And I had a friend in high school and we would just laugh all day and put on skits. You know, it's the Andy Kaufman thing or the Marty Short thing where you're performing in your bedroom for yourself.

I've always loved silent movies. I recently saw 'Tilly's Punctured Romance' at the Academy, which is the first comedy made with Charlie Chaplin in 1914, and I sat there, and I couldn't believe that the entire audience of 2,000 people were laughing that hard from a movie made in 1914 - and there were no words; it was all faces.

I was very interested in vaudeville. It was the only sort of discipline that was a five-minute act on stage, which is what I really enjoyed and saw myself doing. And I bought books on it.

When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians - Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I'd go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things out I'd seen. I learned to do pratfalls when I was very young.

I've always loved pure, silly slapstick comedy. It always makes me laugh.

Dance, vaudeville, drama, movies - as a child I loved everything that went on in a theater.

Friends told me not to bother with the silents - they're jerky, poorly photographed and ludicrously badly acted. But I was immediately struck by the freshness and vitality of these films.

Comedy is difficult, especially slapstick. The trick is to have fun while you are performing it.

At times we were criticized for doing too much slapstick. I don't believe in mild comedy, and neither does Lucy.