◄ Kurt Braunohler ►

Quotes

A lot of improvisers mistakenly assume stand-up is awful, because there are a lot of stand-ups in the world that did not appeal to me. It was so easy to make a blanket statement when I was improvising only: 'Stand-up's terrible.' It's so ignorant and stupid to do that. But it's easy to do that. So that's where I came from.

All the great game show hosts have a signature 'look,' from Bob Barker's year-round Brazil Nut-hued tan to Monty Hall's oversized lamb chop sideburns. As the host of IFC's new comedy game show 'Bunk,' I, too, have worked to develop a style signature by being the first man or woman in TV history to host every show in my bare feet!

Auditions are just torture. I'm trying to get better at it. It's a very difficult thing to do. You go into a tiny room with a camera with somebody who is doing this with 100 other people, and they're so bored, and then you have to be like, 'Hey! I'm gonna show you what I got!'

Eric Bryant and Ethan Berlin, the creators of 'Bunk,' asked me to come get involved in very early process when they wanted to make a game show.

Everyone wants something that'll appeal to, like, 13-year-olds to 18-year-olds. Especially working in television and trying to pitch shows, they're like, 'We definitely want something that a 14-year-old will be, like, super-psyched about.' And I'm like, 'I don't know if my reality is appealing to a 14-year-old.'

For a long time, I dressed like an idiot. In college, I had a fully shaved head with just two horns. Like, a coxcomb of hair that I would sculpt into two horns. I looked like a crazy person.

For a really long time in my life, I fought against how I look. Because I was raised Catholic in school, where everyone had to wear a suit and tie. I hated everything that stood for. And I realized when I walked down the street, everyone would see the guy I hated and not the guy I was.

For people who mourn for old Times Square - hey, there's a ton of places in the city still like that! Get on the train and go visit them!

I go on Wikipedia and alter pages of animals with fake facts that I've made up about those animals.

I pushed against doing a podcast for so long. I'm a very late comer to the podcast game. But you're responsibility as a comedian is to get your viewpoints out into the world, and we have a lot more avenues to do that. So it's a lot more opportunity, but really have to work all the time.

I want to continually find ways to bring my ideas off the stage and into the real world, into the streets. I think I can make the world a better place, if only for a little while.

I would love to be more specific, but really, any type of bird is the funniest animal. They have to move awkwardly when walking. They have beady eyes; they are very suspicious. They can't do anything right. They have no hands, which is inherently funny.

In doing my podcast, I do find that I tend to try out bits that I then try on stage later that day. If they work, great, and if they don't, I regret having talked about it on the podcast.

In my new IFC comedy game show, 'Bunk,' we actually use our intern Patrick as a human timer - giving contestants the time it takes for him to wade through a bag of broken glass for a razor blade, to get gum out of his hair, to pick up every strand from a box of spaghetti I spill on the floor, etc, etc.

It is an intern's job to go for coffee for anyone who asks, preferably delivering it scalding hot and cupped in your bare hands!

It used to be if you wanted to be a comedian, you used to just do sets. You'd go up three times a night, just get better, and then some people would see you and you'd do 'The Tonight Show,' and then boom, you're a comedian.

New York is a place that can grind you down and spit you out. A true New Yorker doesn't get ground down - he gets polished.

Other than Caroline's in New York, I pretty much haven't done clubs. That was primarily because I always liked the people and audiences at theaters and bars better.

People have said that to me: They say I have a TV face.

The entire New York comedy scene has moved to L.A. - it's bled the New York comedy scene dry.

The rules of game shows limit stuff so much. I remember on 'Money From Strangers,' being in the van - not even performing - and there was a lawyer there the entire time. 'No, you can't give money for that. Yes, you can give money for that. That's a partial answer. That's a full answer.'

There are a billion songs that I've heard and said, 'I don't even care to have an opinion about it,' but if I have to hear a snippet of the refrain of 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' once, it'll get stuck in my head, and that drives me crazy.

There's this secret Korean taco/cupcake truck I go to. To find it, you have to bring a hard-boiled egg to this deli in Bushwick where they give you the address.

We are going to do 'Hot Tub' until we die. Every Monday. Then we'll come back and do it as zombies. 'Hot Tub' is very important. What we do is based on our live skills. It's stand-up and sketch and improv; everything we do in 'Hot Tub' is important to our jobs. And every Monday I'm excited to do it.

Who would want to get back together with Taylor Swift after having dated her? I'm sure dating her is like talking to a white sheet of paper with a little bit of vanilla ice cream on it that doesn't say anything.

You don't become a fully-formed human as a female, or even a male, until you're at least 30.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

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