I don't really know how to start shows.

Come on now, don't start liking me now.

So yeah, I'm funny compared to you.

Well, you'll see later.

I favor me.

I know a lot of fucking idiots.

You think a lot of shit is mean-spirited.

Just because it goes against what they believe.

But the relief of comedy is it take things that aren't funny

and it allows us to laugh about them for an hour

We got a purple suit to buy in a gigantic coffin.

Why are you laughing?

Good evening, everybody.

Welcome to another episode of Why Are You Laughing, a history of comedy podcast.

And today, I'm pleased to introduce to you the incomparable Steve Martin, one of the all-time greats, honestly, and he's a strange

guy, and we'll play a couple clips that actually describe what his legacy is pretty well,

but I think we also reference his book a lot, which is one of the best comedy books, if not the

best ever written, born standing up.

And in that book, he refers to his act as basically a parody of an entertainer, which I think is actually the right way to describe what he did, because a lot of people misinterpret what

Steve Martin is because of some of the people that

imitated him years later.

And I always think of the line in the office when Dunder Mifflin, the Scranton branch is getting

...