I recently finished reading “The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at The World Famous Comedy Theater” by Mike Thomas. The book is a history of the famous improv theatre in Chicago compiled as almost exclusively quotes from different people involved with Second City. Here’s the quotes I found valuable.
Sheldon Patinkin:
“There was more of a willingness to fail then, because we all knew that as the only way you were going to find the good stuff.” (11)
Alan Arkin:
“There is no place to fail anymore. And failing is crucial. You don’t learn from anything unless you fail.” (11)
David Steinberg:
“It’s no surprise that I would become a stand up comic, where you only have to be yourself all the time.” (28)
“What you took away from that is, if you try to hide any version of yourself, you’re not going to be good. And be as smart as you want to be. Don’t play to the dumbest person in the audience. Play to the smartest person in the audience. That seems like a little rule, but at the time it was a sort of revolutionary thing.” (28)
Eugenie Ross-Leming:
“You were dealing with funny people who understood that there is no price too high to pay for funny, including self-humiliation.” (58)
Dave Thomas:
“The thing you do that becomes the most popular is not necessarily the thing that you love the most.” (108)
Conan O’Brien:
“People increasingly want comedy to mean something, and they wan tit to be relevant to what’s happening in the world, and I’ve always believe the opposite, which is it should be irrelevant. It shouldn’t mean anything. You shouldn’t look for meaning in comedy. That’s my religious conviction and I’m orthodox about that.” (112)
“John Candy was everybody I wanted him to be, and I still think about this when I meet young people who seem happy to meet me. I never want to let them down. I want them to walk away feeling as happy as I was when I met John Candy.” (113)
Danny Breen:
“You can’t do the sily stuff till later in the show when you’ve earned the audience’s respect. You had to make them respect your intelligence before you could do a fart joke.” (138)
Joshua Funk:
“Finally in my life I felt like what we do is important. And it’s so easy to think of comedy as that jester in the king’s court, where this useless goofball is making people laugh and that’ his whole existence. And I get that feeling sometimes when I look at myself in the big perspective. Is making people laugh really a valuable role in society, or am I just a joke? Especially in times like that, when you see people who are firemen and people who are going to war and people hwo are doctors and lawyers and saving lives and making huge differences. You second-guess it. Before 9/11, the shows had degenerated into a bunch of poop and fart jokes and just silly scene work. We were livin’ life high on the hog. There was nothing that was pissing us off. We didn’t feel the importance of social commentary. We were just going for laughs. And then when 9/11 happened, I think the paradigm of Second City finally went back to where it was when JFK got assassinated and when the Vietnam War happened and when the civil rights era happened.” (234)
Bruce Pirrie:
“The take-away from the success of Facebook of Revelations was: get a brand name in the title.” (241)
Joe Canale:
“That’s the first time they really started to realize the impact a title could have. Every time we pitch titles, I pitch “The Second City Sells Out, because it’s a double entendre. But they’re very conscious now of getting a good title because they think that can help them out a lot.” (243)
Mike Thomas:
“Talent needs stability and opportunity to truly shine.” (247)
“The one thing I like to say is “Enjoy the journey.” When you go on your road to stardom or fame in this business, the journey turns out to be a lot more fun than you ever think it will be. That’s only in retrospect, but the journey is a blast.” (248)
