When I first started working, it was a little bit like that. They said, "Come be a writer, but we'll find a place for you to perform somehow." Initially, I wasn't that helpful as a writer. Because, if you tell me what the bit is, I can come up with jokes for it. I can write dialogue, but what they needed was guys who could say, Okay, it's a machine where you put in a piece of fruit and pull on this lever and out comes a celebrity joke.

Andy Richter