Quotes by Paul Provenza

“[Chappelle, who loved the joke, could never make time to film. The directors were lucky enough to catch Chris Rock backstage, with camera in hand. As for the venerable Richard Pryor,] Every comedian in America wishes they were Richard Pryor, ... We could hear him laughing and coughing in the background.”

“Were familiar with the notion of musicians reinterpreting the same song over and over, but we dont ever hear that with comedians,”

“We didnt choose the joke because its filthy! We chose it because of the structure!”

“We dont judge anybody if theyre offended, were just having a good time,”

“Though its justified because theyre a private company, its also based on hypocrisy because [AMC] showed Irreversible, which basically has a 15-minute scene of violent anal rape, so what about that?”

“[Hackett] told it on the Tonight Show during a commercial and when they came back from commercial break [Johnny] Carson was just busting a gut for like four minutes trying to get his **** together,”

“There are many people who say it was Johnnys favorite ever.”

“I was surprised how deeply that affected us. Every comedian will say Johnny was just the biggest influence on their life.”

“Penn and I conceived the film together,”

“As we set about to edit, I watched 150 hours of footage over and over for a period of months. I had to figure out what hanging out with these artists doing this joke meant. In that process some ideas began to emerge: craft and art, freedom and creativity, boundaries and taboos, etc. So we used comics performances that illustrated those ideas. We wanted to show rather than tell.”