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" Often, when people don't do so well in a monologue at UCB, it's because they're racking their brain so hard to be funny that they're just not honest and don't just tell a true story, which is what we want. "

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" When we started doing sketch comedy - actually in '91 in Chicago - making your own videos, which we did, took forever. It would take like, a year to make one video. It was just so difficult to edit and just do everything you had to do. "

Matt Besser

Doing

Comedy

Own

" It's almost kind of satisfying when you get direct proof that someone stole your bit. It makes the times you had the paranoid suspicion feel less crazy. "

" Sometimes people can be offensive and not even realize it. "

" I really enjoyed doing stand-up. Andy Kaufman was a big hero of mine. I tried to do conceptual stuff like he tried to do. "

Matt Besser

Mine

Doing

" Acting is just about the script and the director giving you notes. In improv, it's more about trusting that the group will carry you. "

" I was a DJ in college and had my own punk music-focused show all four years. "

" A story is ultimately a memory. It's important when you're telling a story to think about why this memory is a memory. You don't remember everything in life; you just remember certain things - so, why this one? "

" People are either funny or they're not, and you can't teach that - but you can teach people to work together to make an idea better. "

" I grew up in the '80s, when breaking was cool, and then it got corny in the '90s, and it became cool again with all these choreographed B-Boy dance crews. "

Matt Besser

Cool

Again

" I'll probably never stop improvising. "

" I never liked the glossiness of highly produced standup specials in general - I like it where it has more of a feel of the type of places I usually perform. It seems kind of weird when you do a special to go perform in a place unlike the place where you perform 95% of the time. "

" I like musicals that are sometimes comedic, but I haven't even seen the Monty Python musical, and I'm a huge Monty Python fan. "

Matt Besser

Fan

Sometimes

" I do believe if we opened up a comedy theater in a city, that we're going to be able to teach improv better than whoever's there already. In general, I think I could say that. "

Matt Besser

Comedy

Think

" I always like being a director in terms of giving acting notes and punching up on the fly. "

" I got really depressed when Sidney Moncrief lost to Larry Bird. That really depressed me. "

Matt Besser

Got

Lost

" I think it's pretty stupid to write off an entire genre of anything. It's one thing to say 'I don't like country music.' But it's pretty narrow minded to say 'All country music sucks.' Of course, that being said, all short-form improv sucks. "

" I actually find prank CDs pretty annoying. "

" We all hate those stories that end with 'And that's the story.' "

" People take toasting way too seriously - especially the clinking glasses part. There are always a few people who are seated too far away from each other to easily clink. "

" So many comedians, if you asked them, 'What's your priority in standup?' it's probably gonna be to make people laugh or to entertain them. That is just way down on my priority list, if on my list at all. I'm into breaking records. If I can do a set and break a record and get no laughs, I'm happy. "

" I thought the musical aspect of 'Freak Dance' was a good contrast to how dancers always try to come off as really tough in those movies - they're trying to literally come off as gangs like as if the Crips and the Bloods are also dancing in addition or instead of fighting with guns and knives and stuff. "

" I'm more comfortable doing a character than being myself. "

" I don't think 'Freak Dance' is a parody; it's more reference than anything. People don't think of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' as a 'Frankenstein' parody. It's kind of like that. "

" If acting with other people is in your plans, then you need to learn how to work with other people to build a comedic premise. "

" Don't invite me to a surprise birthday party. I don't have room for that secret. I've got enough real secrets I have to keep: dark, life-destroying secrets. "

Matt Besser

Enough

Surprise

" You're always starting with a nugget of truth, whether it's a song or an improv scene. "

" It seems like the real television networks, the amount of people that watch each network is going down and down, and the amount of people that watch each website is going up and up. "

" Improv acting is not just saying the lines but connecting with the other actor. "

" I didn't even learn to play guitar until the movie 'Walk Hard,' which is probably fortunate because maybe I would have pursued it, and that would have been a waste of my time. "

" The one thing that's depressing as a comedian to realize is that rock stars get groupies, and comedians don't. "