I don't see much point in doing things for a pure joke. Every now and then you need a joke, but not so much as the people who spend all their lives constructing joke palaces think you do.
The U.K. and Europe in general seem to be a lot more patient. The U.S. are expecting 'joke joke joke joke joke joke joke.' They don't actually sit and listen to you.
When I'm writing columns, it's - all I'm thinking about is jokes, joke, joke, joke, setup, punch line, joke, joke, joke. And I really don't care where it goes.
If you look at the teams that mix and match their starting lineup a great deal, that sort of inconsistency frequently leads to inconsistency in performance.
Twitter is a good medium to lean how to write jokes. It pushes you to write a better joke in that, on Twitter, the first joke about something has already happened. You need to think of the second joke and the third joke.
As far as outlining is concerned, I don't outline humor. I might right down a word or two to remind myself of a punch line I thought of, but the actual structure of a piece I really don't. I don't think it would really help me because for me the process is joke, joke, joke, joke.
To be perfectly honest with you, having a mother as an actress - who I watched struggle tremendously during my childhood - and to watch fluctuations of ups and downs is difficult. She did mainly television, so I think I associated that with a life of inconsistency. As I've come into my own, I realize it has nothing to do with the medium.
There's this joke that Anna Drezen wrote for Melissa Villasenor, where Melissa plays every teen-girl murder suspect on Law & Order.' And there's this joke in there that is like, We stabbed her as a joke, but she took it the wrong way and started bleeding!'
The thing with the comedian is you can make all the jokes you want and not every joke it going to be a winner, and not every joke is going to land, there'll be some that somebody doesn't laugh at, but that's just part of the deal.
I think I'm a good joke writer. I'm also very scared that the last joke I wrote is the last joke I'll ever write.
I have become a giant fan of the testing process, especially with a comedy. I mean, they tell you what's funny. It's almost tailor-made for people who shoot the way we shoot, trying a million different options and versions of things. Because the audience doesn't laugh at a joke, we put in another joke. If they don't laugh at the next joke, we put in another joke. You just keep doing them and you can get the movie to the point where every joke is funny, if you have enough options in the can.
Vegetarianism as a moral position is no more coherent than saying that you think it morally wrong to eat meat from a spotted cow but not morally wrong to eat meat from a non-spotted cow.
When I was governor, if I told a joke in front of the press - I learned. I would go, "That was a joke, joke, joke," and I'd say it three times.
This imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.
Every bad joke, every endorsement deal, all of the things that a typical host would normally get creamed for, people don't mind, because they know I don't cheat when it comes to the work I actually try. I'm a lab rat. I'm a perpetual apprentice. The joke is on me if there is one.
The fact that 'Mom' is not joke, joke, joke - and is investing in these characters and their lives, things that really happen to people - I think it's resonating, and that's why people are tuning into it and not just dismissing it as a multi-cam sitcom.