The president of CBS handpicked me for the 'Star Search' revival, which Arsenio Hall hosted. He picked 12 comics, and I was the only female. I always look to that as inspiration.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was growing up in comedy, there were maybe 10 comics in the whole country. Everyone had a day job. You worked free for years in little clubs, then you got your big break and became a star.
I had a few comics, but I was by no means a huge aficionado. I was more of a 'Mad Magazine,' 'Calvin & Hobbes' sort of nerd.
I was a comic book nut and grew up on 'Star Wars' and 'Indiana Jones.'
I was a Marvel guy. I started reading comics when I was a kid.
We didn't have television until I was about eight years old, so it was either the movies or radio. A lot of radio drama. That was our television, you know. We had to use our imagination. So it was really those two things, and the comics, that I immersed myself in as a child.
I definitely was a big comic collector as a kid.
Seth Meyers and I wrote a 'Spider-Man' comic.
Anyway, in the mid 80's I was spending a fortune buying old Golden Age books from the late 30's and 40's and I was making personal appearances at a lot of sci fi and comic book conventions all around the country here so that I could find books for my collection.
My wife, Caroline Spector, and I pitched some comic ideas to various publishers back in the '80s, but nothing ever came of it.
I got cast on 'MADtv' as one of eight permanent cast members chosen from 8,000 comics who'd been screened. For any comic trying to make something of themselves, that was like hitting triple 7s-jackpot.