Influences

Per the recommendation of my attorney friend Jon, I was thinking about some of the things that have influenced me comedically over the years. I'm going to talk about them and you will probably read them and think about them and agree with them.

Phase 1: Childhood - High School

In Living Color: So important. We forget. It was the first time I ever realized that I had the ability to impersonate when everyone gathered around me in 5th grade and I rocked a little Fire Marshall Bill on Mondays.

Characters:

Fire Marshall Bill: yup
Vera Demylo: Jim Carey's she-male thing. I still talk like this sometimes...when I'm alone
Antoine Jackson: When Damon Wayans was funny, he did the homeless guy and the dude that talked with miss-used big words. Amazing.
Dickie Peterson: another Jim Carey (it was 'James' then). The convinience store security guard. Basically, same voice as Cable Guy years later.
Parnell: Yet another Jim Carey, the nerdy kid with the chick who played 'Edna'. Hilariousness to me.

The Jerky Boys: The afforementioned Jon and I used to roll around listening to the Jerky Boys in the car. We'd force girls to listen to them and quoted them incessantly. It even inspired some real life prank phone calls from various locations.

Characters:

Sol Rosenberg: Reason #88 why Family Guy is great (more on them later) is that they got the guy who did Sol to play 'Mort' on the show (He also plays the bartender). So many good lines.
Frank Rizzo: The gold standard.
Kissell/Pico: No one was quite sure what this voice was, but it was really funny and I could do it. Kissell was always paired with Pico which made me laugh.
Tarbash the Egyptian Magician: incredible
Jack Tors: I am laughing right now as I type this name.

There were of course other sources of humor (Eddie Murphy, Jim Carey films) but those were the two big things.

College - Young Adult (Pre Comedy)

There were more influences in here. My attention was very spread out.

-The Big Lebowski: Incredible litmus test for a girl. If she likes it/gets it, you can talk to her.
-Family Guy: Round 1. Literally, its like they took stuff from when I was a kid, sprinkled it into an amazingly written show with hilarious characters, and then realized: 'its a cartoon. We can do whatever the f*ck we want'. If you are between 18-33 and don't like it, you're Russian.
-South Park: Its old for me now, but when it first hit, pretty awesome stuff. Those guys had the same epiphany: 'we can do whatever we want' and it was on cable so they did some great stuff. If the 'Academy' was't full of sh*t, the South Park Movie would have won best picture (blew American Beauty out of the water)
-Pablo Francisco: he came to GW and did a show. I was mesmerized. We had David Spade once and another guy who I cannot remember. Pablo wasn't a huge name at the time and was better than anything I had ever seen. At that point, the comics who were making it big were Seinfeld type guys doing observational humor and such. Pablo was the first guy I ever saw who did the opposite. He put you in a story and took you the whole way through, painting vivid images and giving so much energy to the crowd. Truly awesome. It made me think that 1) If I ever did comedy I'd want to do it like that 2) I can never do comedy because that guy is too good.
Christopher Guest films: Waiting for Guffman/Best In Show/Spinal Tap

Post Fun Young Adult and Beginning of Comedy Career:

Brian Reagan: if you don't know, its just irresponsible.
Mitch Hedberg: See above.
Dane Cook: Now, no one is more hated. They might all be right. I don't know. What I do know is that I saw that guy at the Improv and he put on the best show I've ever seen for an hour. Period. I was sore from laughing. I bought Harmful if Swallowed and thought it was just the best thing I'd ever heard. He was non-stop. Most every comic you talk to despises this guy but he will always remember how great he was before he was big.
The Office: The British Version. The funniest show with real actors in the history of television. Every character was perfect.

I'm sure I forgot some stuff that I think is funny. This was just off the top of my head.

I will close with a line from the Jerky Boys:

"Yibba dabba yibba dabba yibba dabba..............pooogh...loud"