Top 33 Jonathan Krisel Quotes

I know comedy; I know how to do crazy, off-the-wall stuff that makes me laugh out loud.

I definitely feel the pressure to keep things fresh and original.

I’m not a big ‘scripted comedy’ person necessarily. I’m open for wherever comedy can be found.

My brand of comedy is taking a serious approach to silliness. Small moments of modern life and human behavior make me laugh. At least that’s where everything starts, and then my other through line would be a dry absurdity that exponentially spirals out of reality.

In Portland, it rains all the time – but who cares? That’s not funny. That’s not universal.

Portland is utopia. My favorite thing would be it’s earnestness. I am earnest, too.

You can tell a lot about a person by what comedians they like.

My dad did show me interesting movies at a young age. I remember he showed me ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ and my mom said, ‘I never want to see this movie in my house again.’

On ‘Baskets,’ I’m not sure what the demographic is.

Once the big lights come in, you can feel self-conscious. How can you capture the scene without ruining it and freezing people up? You keep it small and lean.

I am huge fan of Australian comedy. ‘Strictly Ballroom‘ is one of my favorite movies. Definitely the British Commonwealth‘s sensibility is where I draw a lot of my influences.

I look at a show like ‘Roseanne.’ That’s super influential on me. It’s very funny, very real, with real problems. That was a big influence, and I don’t know if you see that all the time in the network world.

It’s exciting being in the present. You’re always reading emails, talking about the future, looking at pictures on Facebook of the past. But living in the present? It’s almost a dead medium. I almost want to do a sketch about being in the present.

There is no ‘recycle too much.’ That’s an oxymoron.

In your twenties, you might want to be radical and change the world, but in your thirties, you might just want to be happy and ground yourself.

I always look at ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail.’ They talked about how they wrote this movie with horses, and then they realized that horses are super-expensive and time-consuming. ‘Why don’t we just change it to coconuts?’ That’s part of my process.

I love the beige, tan, stucco world where the sun bleaches things out to the point that it can look somewhat ugly.

For me, I love and hate Costco. I think it’s ruined America and made America great.

As the director, you have it in your mind how you want the part done, how you want someone to do it, and so sometimes you just say, ‘Why don’t I do it myself?’ So for a little role, I’ll just do it.

I went to film school, and I came in when video art was king, weird stuff was king, and there, you don’t have a script as your bible.

With all the outlets, if you have a strong comedic voice, there’s a venue to do your thing. It’s a bit of a meritocracy, where the best stuff rises to the top.

Comedy is like horror – you have to shock something in the viewer‘s system to make them feel it.

The Internet is a good way to try some stuff with no big crew and no money being spent. Since there are no stakes to it, you can try to be a little experimental.

Different actors have different rhythms. My goal as a director is to let these guys get their best work out.

I like dry-to-the-bone stuff. I don’t know what it is. I was raised on PBS showing weird British comedies.

Louie Anderson thinks my thing is the absurdness of reality. That’s what we do on ‘Portlandia’ all the time. I try to bring that absurdness of reality to everything.

There’s a thing in comedy where you take one step into a bad idea, but if you take 10, then it becomes a good idea again.

When you make a pilot, you’ve never seen the show before; you don’t know what it is.

You can use cheap technology to get a great look.

I love working with nonactors.

I always want to push myself.

‘Fawlty Towers‘ was a huge influence on me. I mean, it was so slapstick, too. ‘Are You Being Served?’ was on 15 times a day, it seemed like, and I loved it.

Certain shows, when it’s all comedy, it’s like when you eat something that’s too sweet and it just tastes gross. You need that salted caramel.