Quotes & Sayings About Sketch Comedy

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. — Rachel Bloom

There's a common misconception with sketch comedy that you just go up there and wing it, but it's written, and there really is order. — Adam Pally

I've done some version of that Minnesota accent - that Midwestern accent - in sketch comedy for years. It's the quickest way to symbolize you're a mom. — Allison Tolman

Everybody needs some good sketch comedy. — Bob Odenkirk

There's this other world where all comedians want to do is make funny videos. Typically what's happened in the past is that a comedian gets a standup career and over the course of 20 years builds it up to the point where Comedy Central gives them a sketch show. — Gavin McInnes

Dealing with sketch comedy and buddy teams like Abbott and Costello, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby - I just loved buddy comedies. — Drake Bell

If it's strictly comedy, I like to bring some darkness to it. If it's strictly drama, I always like to lighten it up as well. I like to find some kind of dimension and make my characters human, so that it doesn't feel like a sketch and feels more like a slice of life. — Nestor Carbonell

It's a real democratic time for comedy, and I think my special is a sign for that. You don't have to just be a classic stand-up to get a special, or you don't just have to be on Saturday Night Live to do characters and sketch on TV. The web has allowed me to show that there are different ways to make people laugh, and the special is a combination of those things. — Nick Kroll

A sketch should be about two to three minutes, which is basically what most songs are. They're usually done by groups. Good examples of each build and have different parts and twists in them. I guess sketch would be the comedy version of music. — Trevor Moore

I had seen some shows at the Groundlings [legendary L.A. improvisational and sketch comedy troupe] and thought, "If I could ever do that, that would really mean something, that I have arrived." So I went through the program and said to myself, "I'm going to stay here until they kick me out." Seriously, they can ask you to leave at any point. Luckily, they never did that to me. — Wendi McLendon-Covey

I think people are purists about what sketch comedy should be, and I think sometimes having too much fun can be a little annoying to some people. — Horatio Sanz

Well, I loved variety in television, I loved sketch comedy. At 'Saturday Night Live,' I stayed almost seven years. — Dana Carvey

I went from an unemployed actor's life to doing stand-up comedy, and that was fortuitous. It's not the usual way the crow flies, going from being in a TV sketch show to playing one of Shakespeare's finest characters, but, hey, that's the way it has happened. — Catherine Tate

When I got to college, as I was walking across campus one day, I ripped off a little flyer for this sketch-comedy group. It ended up being one of the greatest things I've ever done. — John Krasinski

It's certainly strange to do sketch comedy with cue cards at midnight in a skyscraper as opposed to in a basement with your friends. — Casey Wilson

I worked with the Groundlings, doing sketch comedy and improv at a theater here in L.A. It was my hobby, but I took classes and stayed passionate about it because it's what I wanted to do. It just fit. It takes a while before you can actually make money at it. I worked for years. — Fortune Feimster

I've just written this six-part sketch comedy series, which I've never done before. And I don't know how to pitch it. Am I supposed to just pick up a camera and put stuff on YouTube? Is that how it works? — David Alpay

Debbie Downer was one of the few sketches where I broke, and I remember watching Heratio Sanz laugh so hard that tears squirted out of his eyes. I still believe that sketch may be a cure for low-level depression if watched regularly. — Amy Poehler

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. — Missi Pyle

I'm not terribly well read. My wife forces books into my hands and insists I read them, which I'm grateful to her for. She made me read 'War and Peace.' The whole thing. It was amazing, but I had to hide it. You can't walk round reading 'War and Peace' - it's like you're in a comedy sketch and you think you're smart. — Peter Capaldi

I did sketch comedy for years. I've always enjoyed it. — Jamie Farr

I would call it a comedy variety show. We have some people just doing straight standup. We usually try to have one musical act of sort. So its just people being funny in different ways, not just sketch, not just standup, not just characters, all of those things. — Todd Barry

At first, there was a separation of clubs and sketch comedy. Now there's all kinds of comedy, making us one big happy family. — Jen Kirkman

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? — Brian Posehn

There's sketch, improv, writing, acting, music, and badminton. Those are the seven forms of comedy. But I do like the idea of being an auteur in the sense of writing and being in your own stuff. — T. J. Miller

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. — Jason Sudeikis

One of the wonderful things about Portlandia - and I'm not just blowing smoke, although I can blow smoke, but I'm not - is that there is an expansive feeling to each segment. It's not reductive. It doesn't seem like sketch comedy. — Scott Raab

I always loved acting and improv and sketch comedy and theater, which I did at a local youth theater. — Emma Stone

My thing was always more character-driven comedies, not sketch comedy - not that there's not room for both or one isn't enjoyable, just my personal taste, I like movies that comedy comes from out of flaws of people, things that are uncomfortable, out of tragedy. — Vince Vaughn

I'm not a comedian. I didn't study sketch comedy; my background isn't that. — Paul Rudd

I don't have any type of sketch-comedy or stand-up background. — Jenna Fischer

Many of the people I've worked with over the years came from a sketch-comedy background or an improv background, and I've learned a lot from them. — Megan Mullally

Comedy is really my passion. I started out way before television doing sketch comedy with other women. Very much along the lines of, at the time it was 'Sensible Footwear', but now it's 'Smack The Pony', 'French And Saunders', that kind of thing. That's how I started out. — Amanda Tapping

People kept passing our [ with Robert Ben Garant] script around, and suddenly we had this reputation as screenwriters, which we're not - we're sketch comedy guys. — Thomas Lennon

I don't do sketch anymore and sometimes I miss it. But I think what I really miss is that time in my life, it was kind of like college. No kids, no real responsibilities, just comedy, food and late nights. — Alex Borstein

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. — Kevin Nealon

If you want good sketches, go pick up Sid Caesar. The best of Your Show of Shows. That's the greatest sketch comedy you'll ever see on television. — Jamie Farr

Without a doubt in sketch comedy there are fewer women than men. — Maya Rudolph

In sketch comedy, wear your character like a hat, not a suit of armor. — Andy Daly

I want to see Bob Dylan do sketch comedy. I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan. — Bradley Whitford

A couple of friends and I started a sketch comedy group when we were teenagers, just for fun and to start creating stuff. It was a blast. — Reece Thompson

I think the Dutch certainly get British comedy. And let's face it; a lot of it is pretty low-hanging fruit for the whole world now. There are probably tribes in the heart of the Papua New Guinean rainforest that know all the words to the Dead Parrot sketch. — Rhianna Pratchett

Mel Brooks was a young fan at the time: 'Eddie Cantor was very important to me. Very influential on my work. The sketches were fast and furious - and Cantor was great at supporting the other guy in the sketch. It was Cantor who was making it all work for me. — Kliph Nesteroff

I got a degree in broadcast journalism at Northwestern but was running a sketch-comedy group and then went to Second City. When the writers' strike happened in 2007-2008, I went to work at E! because I had that background. — Robin Thede

You all watched a sketch about feminism and you didn't even know it because of all the jokes. It's like when Jessica Seinfeld puts spinach in kids' brownies. Suckers! — Tina Fey

I'm a really gifted physical comedienne. I write and produce a lot of sketch comedy. — Jenn Lyon

I've always been a big fan of comedy and sketch comedy, and I like to laugh, but you can't just be funny. You do have to work at it, and you have to try to know what your role is and when you can insert humor, or when it's best not to. — Colin Hanks

When I first started doing sketch comedy, I promised myself that if I were ever to have any success in this business, I wouldn't hold back. Why get there and play it safe? — Will Ferrell

Nobody wants to see sketch comedy that's the same sketch they've seen time and time again, or that's just a rehash of that thing. — Jordan Peele

I'm in a sketch comedy group in school and I also do stand-up. — Jack Quaid

To go from working with a group of people in a sketch-comedy show on a small network, where it was all about just creating funny stuff, to being on a network show, and the pressures of that, and getting to know the new people who were involved in it. There was a learning curve for me. But it was an education. — Ken Marino

I love sketch comedy. My real goal is to do something with Albert Brooks. That would be my fantasy. I stay up night and day thinking up stuff he might find funny. — Illeana Douglas

To tell you the truth, I always wanted to be a sketch comedian and a comedy actor. — Artie Lange

That night's show was watched by ten million people, so I guess that director at The Second City who said the audience "didn't want to see a sketch with two women" can go shit in his hat. — Tina Fey

There wasn't a big tradition of comedy at Dartmouth. More than that, there wasn't really anything artsy going on in Hanover, or even in New Hampshire. The cool thing about the school is that there's nothing for people to watch, so if you were to do a play or a sketch or an improv troupe, it was always packed. There's nowhere else for anyone to go. But there was no comedy. — Mindy Kaling

I did sketch comedy, but I never did improv. So I've just tried to learn as I go. — John Oliver

My younger sister's a comedian. She has a sketch comedy group in Chicago called Schadenfreude and I look at her with such admiration and envy because it's such an amazing thing to make someone laugh. — Brian D'Arcy James

I think people were not expecting us [with Robert Ben Garant] to, they were just like, "Well here come the writers," but we both were coming out of a sketch comedy background, so when we pitch a movie, we play every character in the film. You act it out, you perform it - you do a 10-minute performance of the movie. — Thomas Lennon

My experience is at The Groundlings Theater, where we created different characters and did sketch comedy. And sometimes the characters were outrageous, but they always came from a real place. So even working there, we had to create characters from the people that we knew. — Cheryl Hines

I still have a desire to do some sketch comedy. My dream is to be on 'SNL,' to host 'SNL.' — Selenis Leyva

I think I'm one of those guys who was sort of always in comedy. I thought of myself - and other people seemed to think of me - as funny from a very young age. I was a very young comedy nerd and I even did sketch comedy in high school and college. I wrote and shot sketches on video and acted in them. — Andy Daly

You really have no idea whether or not what you're writing is funny. In stand-up and sketch comedy, you know right away and you can make your changes accordingly. — Michael Showalter

Because it's uncensored cable, I think we'll be able to do the kind of sketch comedy that really hasn't been seen before. We can actually finish jokes. — Aries Spears

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. — Rachel Bloom

My friends say I make them laugh a lot, so I think that somewhere in me is a little comedic ability that comes out in the most inappropriate or unexpected moments. I did a lot of sketch comedy years ago. That's always in me. — Selenis Leyva

But long story short, I didn't start doing stand-up because I wanted to have a TV show or be an actor or even wanted to write sketch comedy. I got into stand-up because I love stand-up. — Demetri Martin

When you're doing sketch comedy and you're pregnant, it's like wearing a giant sombrero in every sketch. — Amy Poehler

I've been doing Nixon pretty much my whole professional life. I was in this comedy group called the Credibility Gap in Los Angeles when he was president. I was doing Nixon on the radio, and when we did live shows I physicalized him - if that's a word - for the first time. And then I did a Nixon sketch on a very short-lived NBC show called Sunday Best. — Harry Shearer

Every movie I do, or when I'm on the sketch comedy show, I don't really get into it until I have an outfit or something funny with my head or face or something. — Kel Mitchell

I did sketch comedy with a troupe at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. — Selenis Leyva

If you want to be an actor, you need to learn how to act first, even in sketch comedy. — Nicole Sullivan

I was very serene, and I still am, until I start talking in another voice, then suddenly I have a lot of volume and I'm frantic. But I didn't want to be one of those people who's always talking in accents in real life, so I started doing sketch comedy. — Kate McKinnon