Most young comedians would be lying to say that they weren't huge Weird Al fans when they were kids. Weird Al is probably the first person I ever realized had a career that was just making jokes.

I was a huge David Letterman fan, even going back to when he was on NBC. My parents would only let me watch a half hour of television a day, so I would record Letterman the night before and then watch it when I came home from school. That's what made me want to do a T.V. show.

It used to be that in comedy you had to play the clubs and work your way up, but now, before you do the clubs, you can put something up on the Internet. It's public access times a million.

A sketch should be about two to three minutes, which is basically what most songs are. They're usually done by groups. Good examples of each build and have different parts and twists in them. I guess sketch would be the comedy version of music.

I wanted a half-hour, single-camera comedy with a great lead where I could be No. 2 or 3 on the call sheet, and it was going to get on the air. Those were my criteria, and they sent me 'Cougar Town.' I read it and loved it.

I was doing a show at the Comedy Store which Eddie Izzard saw, and we chatted for a bit afterwards. I didn't really know he was; we just hung out as comedians together, and when he heard my story, he said, 'Why don't you tell that on stage?' I didn't really want to burden people with all that, but he said that I could have fun with it.

I was certainly not a class clown; I confused and angered a lot of people with my sense of humor.

I have friends growing up in Egypt. I have friends in England. And they just can't believe that what I used to say, it used to be almost like a joke. I used to say I'll be in the NBA one day.