Explore popular quotes and sayings by John Pinette.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
John Paul Pinette was an American stand-up comedian, actor, and Broadway performer. He toured the comedy club circuit beginning in the 1980s and appeared in cinema and on television. Besides stand-up, Pinette did impressions of Michael Jackson, The Chipmunks, Elvis Presley, Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, Hervé Villechaize, an Ewok, actor Marlon Brando, as well as various ethnic accents. He occasionally sang in his stand-up routines; for example "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz, "Will You Be There" from Free Willy, and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina".
Singing on Broadway terrified me more than anything I've done.
I never dreamed that I would be part of a Broadway show.
Larger people do not get a lot to play in the theater.
Gravity is a law. I respect the law.
I have issues with food and weight and I can make that funny. The audience loves it. I have fun with it.
I was an accountant for six months, and for the last three, I didn't do much work.
I grew up in Malden. Genetically, I was born to be as close to Kelly's Roast Beef as possible.
Let's face it, it's a skinny world out there.
When I really want to get healthy people don't believe me.
Ron White is pretty great at what he does.
The guy who made the shoes for 'Hairspray' said putting shoes on me was like putting a pump on a ham. I found out that if I ever was to dress like a woman, I would not be buying off the rack.
I started swimming. I frolic like Free Willy.
People have told me, 'It's part of your act, you're big, it's part of your persona.' Well, as I've lost weight, my act has grown.
I do a lot of dialects in my act, including Irish, because I grew up in a neighbourhood that was predominantly Irish and Italian.
It doesn't seem like I write the material it seems like the material comes to me and I write it down.
There's a lot of life out there.
Any kind of change in your life creates more material for me, because I say in my act 'It ain't comedy, it's my life.'
I liked Jonathan Winters for his character development.
My routine isn't so much dreaming up the comedy as just seeing what happens to me. I seem to be leading a very funny life.
I could go out and talk about President Clinton... or some issue, but people will be on either side. But everyone eats. It's the international language, like Esperanto.
Vegans go to the store and they buy 50,000-pound bags of almonds. And they make it into stuff they wish they could eat.
I really don't do fat jokes. I talk about the trials and tribulations of being a large mammal in America.
I was raised to believe you eat hamburgers, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cheesecake for dessert. In California they eat tofu burgers, fat-free applesauce and cake with no sugar. Hopefully, in between, there's a happy medium for me.
My philosophy in life is just to laugh as much as possible through the good and the bad - to laugh at the tragedies as well as the triumphs.
I'm one of the larger mammals. Everyone in my family was large, mom and dad, my two older sisters. If you meet a skinny person in my family, you say, 'And you are married to who?'
You know, working with puppets - there is just something about it. Because the puppet takes on its own personality.
I don't really sing.
I want to talk about being a big guy... it's not a fat joke. It's a joke about living the way you live.
All I'm really doing is talking about going on diets and... just about being a big guy. Why should that be any different from a comic that says, 'I was an alcoholic,' or, 'I was in a bad relationship?'
Salad isn't a meal. Salad's the stuff that comes with a meal.
I knew if I wanted to live past mid-life I would have to lose some weight.
When I moved from Boston to L.A., I floundered. I definitely did time at the Improv and the Comedy Store, making 20 bucks a night. I learned how to be a starving comic. I was an in-debt comic: I ate well on loan.
If I was 120 pounds, I still ain't going white-water rafting.
You see, I've always had this thing in that I love to make people laugh, I want to entertain people.
At home, I have a healthy regular diet... But on the road, you find yourself at 11 o'clock at night, after a great show at a performing-arts center, and there's nothing open but a pizza place.
Just coming to L.A. to be a comic and an actor, it's not the kindest world to come to. There's a lot of rejection, which I'm not used to. I hate rejection, but it's about 90 percent of the business.
It's a cliche, but my comedy is all about life.
I guest-starred on 'Alf.' I played a stand-up comic Howie Anderson.
Call it fate, call it God, I call it God, but I think that I found what I was comfortable in this world with doing.
I have had some success. And it's all been wonderful, and a growing process for me. But it's nothing to my family compared to being in a musical.
I denied my comic thing there for awhile. I always made people laugh, but my family said that's not the real world, I had to put on a suit and tie and be serious.
I really am part whale. I want to do a movie like 'The Incredible Mr. Limpet' and join a family of whales.
I did a lot of dues-paying in L.A. that I didn't pay in Boston because I was kind of a success there. It was all worth it, I guess.
I'm a big guy, but I don't do 'I'm so fat that... ' jokes.
Being asked to be in the last episode of 'Seinfeld' is not something you pass on. It was a great honor.
I've been heavy my whole life. I've been up and down, and I can tell you that down is much better.
Hollywood has a lot of barriers set up for everyone. If you can live with it, and you can break through, then you're going to do OK.
The best way to become a better stand-up guy is to take a break from it and do other things.
I have no butt, none of the men in my family do.
Opening for Mr. Sinatra in 1991 enabled me to do Vegas more as an opening act. I did the Superdome with him, probably nine arenas over a year and a half, and his second-to-last appearance at the Desert Inn in Vegas.
I'd done the movie 'The Punisher,' and Travolta was in that, though we didn't have scenes together. We met at the premiere and he's a very nice man.
I talk about my life; it is the funniest thing I can think of.
I was a very bad accountant. I knew the book theory, but I didn't have the heart for it. I did it for six months, and my job was to distract the auditors with jokes.
In standup, you look for a common ground that people have.
In my case, I don't eat a lot before a show. I eat after. But I do two shows and it becomes part of my reward system. 'I made people laugh. I deserve a pizza.'
There's nothing like live performance.
I take some ungodly pantyhose size. You've heard of 2X or 3X. I'm something horrible, like a 47X.
I eat healthy. The only problem is late-night eating. It's the Sumo Diet, they eat and go to sleep and that's how they get them that big.
I have no problem joking about who I am.
I just feel like there are a lot of funny things that happen in this world and I guess that's for the good and the bad.