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I think what is important for things to be funny is if you the listener, or the reader, get a chance to supply the humor of it yourself.

I think some days you should do a cartoon that is absolutely just for the laugh, and some days you should do a cartoon that just punches the reader right in the stomach. It's kind of nice to mix it up.

The humor is essentially dark for a cartoon and sophisticated. But at the same time, being a cartoon gives the writers more freedom than in a normal sitcom. It always pushes the line that, despite human failings, the Simpsons are really decent people.

Whatever makes you laugh is fine, and all we can do as comedy professionals is try to steer you towards something that we think is a little better - but not put you down or just perplex you in the process.

Your funny gets developed pretty early on. Comedy requires that you understand as much as possible about the viewpoints of all people and everything that's going on around you. It genuinely requires a true point of view, a real sense of your own view of things in the world.

I truly think comedy is - being funny is DNA. My dad was a doctor, a wonderful doctor, and people still come up to me today, 'Your father helped my mother die.' You know what I'm saying? He made her laugh 'til she died. My father was always very funny.

I don't really find things funny unless they're deeply tragic at the same time. I think if you're funny just for the sake of being funny, it's just frivolous nonsense. To me, all the best comic plays have been written about really serious and rather bleak things.

I think the main thing about comedy and humor is that it's impossible and always was impossible to define.

Funny is as funny does, and funny puts on a walrus mask and slowly gyrates in a mall food court. I laugh at absurdity hardest, then stories, then observations, then bearded men on roller skates.

The first purpose of comedy is to make people laugh. Anything deeper is a bonus. Some comedians want to make people laugh and make them think about socially relevant issues, but comedy, by the very nature of the word, is to make people laugh. If people aren't laughing, it's not comedy. It's as simple as that.