I'm Alan Olga and this is Clear In Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

I think on every project when you're working with someone that really turns you on creatively

where some of the you light up, that's the most exciting thing.

I mean I don't want to be the one master of the project and everything is my idea and I'm a control freak.

I'm so happy when someone tops my joke or has a better idea for a scene.

I'm thrilled when it's not my idea. I don't care. I feel like I'm just orchestrating a collaboration

to get to the best piece of work.

That's writer producer director Judd Apatel.

For at least the last couple of decades he's been one of the most inventive and prolific creators

of comedy. He produced and directed the movies The 40-Year-Old Virgin, knocked up,

this is 40, and the King of Staten Island. And as a producer his films include Bridesmaids,

the two Anchorman movies, and the Big Sick, his television work spans the Larry Sanders show,

freaks and geeks, girls, and crashing. So as you can tell we had a rich mind of funny to explore.

This is going to be great because you have created this empire of funny and I know you've

thought a lot about it and I just want to hear from you your thoughts on what makes something

funny. Exactly what makes something funny. Do you know that what I think about how I learned

what little I know about comedy. I always think about being really little on Long Island

and I would watch mash every single day multiple times a day. It was on day and night on Long Island

in the 70s. It was already in repeats, in syndication while it was still on the air.

And I always think what did I make of mash. I'm watching mash at like nine years old.

At nine. Nine, ten, eleven. And watching it like constantly really enjoying it. But the show

is so smart and it's so dark that I thought it must have really programmed my ethics,

...