I have been recording every single one of my shows since 1994. Every single joke I've ever done is on a hard drive. I can tell you when I wrote every joke I wrote. I can tell you the first time I said it, when I made it different, when I made it better.
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.
I think the idea is that every time we perform Big Red Machine music it should be different somehow - like, different people, different songs maybe, definitely different versions of the songs.
Humor has the tendency to be funny once. If I tell you a joke, we're going to have a big laugh. But the second time I tell the joke, it's going to be a bit strange, and the third time you're going to ask if there's something wrong with me. So I am very cautious with jokes, but there is a lightness in my work.
Every time you say 'I don't want to hear it' when someone is going to tell an ethnic joke, or every time you help somebody cross the street or put money in the bucket in your place of worship, you're making a difference.
My joke is that three black people watch 'The Daily Show' at any given time. So if I'm watching it, that counts, and there's only two left. It's a silly joke, but you know, different types of comedy reach different cultures.
I always say, if I tell you a joke right now and it's funny, you laugh. Now, we set the lights, and I tell you the joke again, it's hard to find it funny the second time.
if you like the lovable sound of an asthma attack in your ear every time you tell a joke.
I went to college when I was 27, and somehow, between high school and college, I became obsessed with getting A's. I can tell you exactly how many non-A's I had, and tell you honestly that I cried every time!
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.
A lot of the comedians don't even tell the joke. Like only three tell the joke, the rest of them dissect it.
I don't know how to tell a joke. I never tell jokes. I can tell stories that happened to me... anecdotes. But never a joke.
I'm not a big one for jokes. I can't tell a joke, believe it or not. If you gave me a thousand bucks and said, "Don, get up at a party and tell a joke," I'm the worst.
If I've got a black joke, and I can't tell it in Oakland, then I shouldn't tell the joke anywhere else.
And the thing about my jokes is, they don't hurt anybody. You can take 'em or leave 'em - you can say they're funny or they're terrible or they're good, or whatever, but you can just pass 'em by. But with Congress, every time they make a joke, it's a law! And every time they make a law, it's a joke!
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.