I do miss the rhythms of comedy. And I've never been able to perform very well without an audience. The sitcoms I've done had them. It was like doing a little play.
One day in '61, I was looking in the Santa Monica phone book for a number, and there it was: Stan Laurel, Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. I went over there and spent the afternoon with them. And pumped him with questions. I must have driven him crazy. I spent a lot of happy hours at Stan's house on Sundays just talking about comedy.
There aren't many pratfalls in comedy anymore.
We used to get 27, 28 minutes to do a story in, and now they're lucky if they get 18 or 20 minutes. So I don't think they can really do a beginning, a middle, and an end anymore. There's an awful lot of one-line jokes; almost every line is a punchline. It's not the same, but there's still good comedy around.
I found doing that kind of comedy without an audience is just... for me, it's almost impossible. You need the audience to do their half of the work.
I did a guest shot on a comedy series where they did 20 to 30 takes of everything. It's just gone by then. The joke is over. It's not funny anymore, and then of course, the editor's the one that has to figure out the timing. I think a lot depends on that.
I did a 'Golden Girls' once, which shot in front of an audience, and that went well. I had a good time. But I need an audience, for comedy at least.
Oh, well, my first love is comedy or singing and dancing.
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