I once read that in vaudeville, it was often the straight guy who got paid more than the comic because that's the tougher job. He has to set up the jokes in just the right way.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I don't consider myself a comic but a performer. A comic tells bad jokes.
I thought they may have presumed too much knowledge of certain things for people who are not comedians. Like Montreal. A comic understands what it is and its importance, but someone else may not know about it.
A lot of comedies are based on the reaction shot. You have one person doing something stupid and one person is generally the straight man, and the laughs generally come on the reaction of the straight man to the funny thing the other person has done.
The development of the comedy club industry destroyed the uniqueness and intimacy of the profession but it also created jobs for comics and bred some great performers.
Comics write to their point of view. If you're an exceedingly irreverent comedian, you've got to see where that point of view fits or produces the most funny.
I'm not the guy with the enormous comedy nose or the big feet or the bad posture or the whatever; a physical comic has certain things.
I really don't know what makes a comedian. I think it's a family background and environment. Yet if you put the same ingredients in another person, he may never utter a funny line.
I think comedians have a function in society, which is to make fun of our icons.
Sometimes, comics will make the observation that it's not jokes that are funny, it's characters that are funny. And isn't that true! That's why I always kill jokes. I'm terrible at them, because I get the joke right, but I can't get the character right, and it just goes down like a lead balloon.
A lot of the jokes had some build-up to some nasty stuff. But most of it was all character situations leading to what the ultimate payoff would be for that character.
No opposing quotes found.