A Quote by Michael McKean

I pray to the shrine of 'Mr. Show.' It saved sketch comedy. — © Michael McKean
I pray to the shrine of 'Mr. Show.' It saved sketch comedy.
I didn't want to write sketch comedy after 'Mr. Show.' I felt like, after 'Mr. Show', why would you want to go work at any of the other places that existed then?
I think that 'Mr. Show' was a huge influence on me. It was literally the reason I started doing comedy, because I was asked to do a bit at The Comedy Store, and B.J. Porter and I went to see Bob and David - who I'd never heard of - do a live show, which was one of the shows that got them the 'Mr. Show' show.
When I graduated, I was director of my school's sketch comedy group, and I knew that I wanted to be writing and performing my own sketch comedy. It kind of made me want to do my own one-person sketch group.
We're having so much writing some of the sillier stuff that never would have been on Mr. Show. And that's not a knock on Mr. Show at all, because it's my favorite comedy show of all time. Even before I worked on it. It's just really refreshing to write something so stupid and say, "We gotta do that."
There was a male sketch group in my college. I was like why isn't there a female sketch group? So then I started doing sketch comedy and all that stuff. It just happened.
I think that if you just kind of try to throw together a sketch show, but you don't have any real vision for what you want to do with the sketch, I don't think your chances are very good. You know, "Let's just have a sketch show!" You have to do something different with it; you have to reinvent that form every so often.
If I was to ask you tonight if you were saved? Do you say 'Yes, I am saved'. When? 'Oh so and so preached, I got baptized and...' Are you saved? What are you saved from, hell? Are you saved from bitterness? Are you saved from lust? Are you saved from cheating? Are you saved from lying? Are you saved from bad manners? Are you saved from rebellion against your parents? Come on, what are you saved from?
When you're doing sketch comedy and you're pregnant, it's like wearing a giant sombrero in every sketch.
The visits Prime Minister Koizumi made to the Yasukuni Shrine, I believe, had nothing to do with approval ratings. He paid respects at the Yasukuni Shrine to pay respects to the people of Japan who fought and lost their lives for the country and to pray for the peace of their souls.
That's what I love about sketch comedy: a sketch is five minutes, then it goes dark, and there's the potential for something else.
I think the great sketch shows, like 'Python' and 'Mr. Show,' they didn't stick around for very long. There's something kind of cool about that.
I'm a huge sketch comedy fan, and I think my love of sketch is reflected in my stand-up in that I do a lot of vignettes and voices and characters.
My experience - and it might be just the kind of comedy that I do, which is usually sketch comedy - is that there's a lot more texture and subplot in drama than in comedy.
Saturday Night Live was a show that I never thought I would be on, because I didn't do sketch comedy and I didn't do impressions. I was a stand-up.
For myself, the way that I learned comedy was doing it live for four years, and only after doing sketch for four years did I feel confident enough to be like, 'Okay, I feel good about starting to put stuff on the Internet where it lives forever.' As opposed to one time at a college sketch show where it bombs and we never speak of it again.
It's a very different show because of the elements that we're putting in. There's so many different styles of comedy, but Mr. Show was unique to Bob and David - two of the most brilliant performers and writers there are. Their show was based on them. Our show is a bit more broad. We have a cast of 7, we have guests. We can be slightly more topical.
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