Matt Besser

“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.”

“Instead of improvisers who want to be funny by themselves, we aim to try and make the scene itself as funny as possible. As a creator, I think that's someone you'd rather work with, whether it's a movie or a sitcom; that kind of methodology is good for collaboration. People want to be with those kinds of performers.”

“We agree that there is a problem in the sketch and improv community where, in general, there should be more interest from a more diverse sampling of our society. That is precisely why we do have diversity scholarships and why we've put together a diversity program to try to figure this problem out.”

“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.”

“Lou Holtz, I was also a huge fan of. He was really funny. I think that's a big part of why I was attracted to the Razorbacks: I thought Lou Holtz was really funny. He is really funny. Too bad he's a born-again, or whatever.”

“When I came to Chicago, I didn't even know what improvisation meant, as far as pertaining to comedy. I knew about Second City, but I didn't know what the word 'improvisation' meant.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Every funny story has at least one unusual thing in it.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Neil Mahoney was definitely the visionary in taking 'Freak Dance' from stage to screen. He made it more cinematic. He brought the choreography, all the ways to shoot that. I was more the director of actors. I was in front of the camera directing, and he was behind the camera directing.”

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

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

“In most specials, the performer's up - not only not surrounded, but up on a stage - and there's a distance between them and the audience, and I think my comedy doesn't work as well in that way.”

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

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

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

“For all you Joe Besser haters who claim that he was the worst Stooge, that's not true - Curly Joe DeRita was the worst stooge. Joe Besser was the second worst.”