A Quote by Mike Birbiglia

It used to be that if you got on 'The Tonight Show,' your career was made. Now, if you're on 'The Tonight Show,' maybe 14 more people show up to your gig in Tulsa. — © Mike Birbiglia
It used to be that if you got on 'The Tonight Show,' your career was made. Now, if you're on 'The Tonight Show,' maybe 14 more people show up to your gig in Tulsa.
My first 'Tonight Show' was just one of those things - I mean this seriously - a cosmic, meant-to-be coming together of circumstance. You walk out there to do your first 'Tonight Show': Is the audience going to be hot? Are you going to be on fire? It's like an athlete: Are you going to have your moves at a peak?
People don't know this, but early in your career, you don't just glide on to The Tonight Show.
Tonight's show is about doubt. Or maybe it isn't - haven't made my mind up yet.
In 1980, when I graduated from high school, my goal was to be on 'The Tonight Show' with Johnny Carson at least once before our ten-year class reunion. Our class reunion was in June of 1990, and I was on 'The Tonight Show' in April 1990, so I made it by a few months.
Late-night shows are 'Chopped.' Who are your guests tonight? Your guests tonight are veal tongue, coffee grounds and gummy bears. There, make a show ... Make an appetizer that appeals to millions of people. That's what I like. How could you possibly do it? Oh, you bring in your own flavors. Your own house band is another flavor.
Yeah, I had a talk show canceled. Okay, let's go back to the list of people who had talk shows canceled. Johnny Carson had his first talk show canceled. Jon Stewart. Letterman. Conan O'Brien, if you look at 'The Tonight Show' as a show that got canceled.
There was never a moment in George Carlin's career where he dipped below an A+. When he came out with the "Hippie Dippie Weatherman" on The Tonight Show, I mean, it seems so mundane now, but it was in black and white TV and the whole bit was that this guy smoked tons of grass and was a terrible weather man. "Forecast for tonight? Dark."
On 'Idol,' you have to show off your vocal abilities, so I stuck to the ballads, so I'm glad my first single is 'Tonight' so I can show off my fun, young side, and what I want to do as an artist.
THE FACT THAT MY DAD IS A PREACHER HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING. HE PROBABLY WOULDN'T AGREE WITH SOME OF MY MATERIAL BUT THEN AGAIN THERE'S NO SIGN ON MY COMEDY EVENT THAT SAYS "REVIVAL HERE TONIGHT". IM SURE GOD HAS MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO THAN GO TO MY 8 OCLOCK OMAHA SHOW. THE SHOW IS THE SHOW AND CHURCH IS CHURCH.
In the stand-up comedy top, there's room for everyone - if you're good, there's room for everyone. You'll put on your own show - no one casts you. You cast your own show as a stand-up comedian. When you get good at stand-up comedy you book a theater and if people show up, people show up. If people don't show up, people don't show up. You don't have a director or a casting agent or anybody saying if you're good enough - the audience will decide.
I still sweat bullets if I go on The Tonight Show, but I tell myself, You can either have fun tonight or you can be shy and miserable. You ask my friends or anyone I work with now - nobody would say I was shy.
The next step for me is not 'The Tonight Show.' That's a job for Jimmy Fallon. I'm way too divisive for a show like that.
My first acting gig was a skit for Jay Leno on 'The Tonight Show.' It was this Barbie commercial where I got to pour mud all over Barbie dolls and watch the heads pop off. It was so exciting, a lot of fun.
We have a show tonight. I've never missed a show. Not even the time I had that virus they kept saying only raccoons get.
I remember seeing Letterman do stand-up on 'The Tonight Show.' Or, it's probably more accurate to say, I remember hearing him do stand-up, because the Carson show existed mainly as sound leaking under my bedroom door at night. I'd hear Johnny telling jokes and my dad laughing at them.
When I got a call from Los Angeles to do the Tonight Show, I considered it more of an inconvenience than an opportunity.
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