It's a really complicated lesson; it's counterintuitive for a comedian. I basically started taking the jokes out, and the show got funnier.

Every time I told them a true bit, it got a bigger reaction than any of the jokes I had written,

Anyone can make people laugh with a good joke but a truly funny person will make you laugh telling a bad one.

Basically I started canning because of the economics of it. And I like the taste of home-canned green beans better than the ones from the store.

Comedy to me has always seemed a social tightrope for the comedian. For all axioms intellectually sound the general public would prefer to be amused, but in those emotionally sound, it then chooses to get offended.

[Dave Barry, who wrote jokes for Martin's Oscar-hosting gig two years ago, mentioned that he performed his Academy Awards monologue with his fly open.] And, ... I think it says something about Steve as a performer, and as a man, that no one noticed.