My parents were not professionals. They were products of the Depression.

I love my work. It's been good to me.

I can honestly say I am the luckiest man around to be able to have worked at a job I love for so many years. It's truly been a joy for me.

My favorite time at NPR has been 'Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!' It was loads of fun and gave me a chance to meet and talk in person to the audiences that I felt I had known for so many years on the air.

When I was a little kid, I was a huge fan of 'The Kids in the Hall.' They were like my boy band. I was obsessed with sketch comedy. Being raised Christian, I was somewhat sheltered from the more radical high-art world. So to me, comedy was where people got to express themselves in an abstract way. It was a big part of my growing up.

I'd love to be in a feature film, and I don't just mean in a starring role - it could be a small part. And I would like to act in television, to do comedy and drama.

Our characters act silly, even totally ridiculous at times, and most of our jokes don't come out of pop cultural references. It seems like we're aiming at a child audience, but everyone can laugh at the basic human traits that are funny. It's playful, the humor is playful, the world is playful. You can kind of let go.

I think the best comedy is tragicomic. Yeah, I suppose if you were to look at everything I've done, there is a bit of a black streak through all of it. It's not deliberate: it's what makes me laugh, and there's a fine tradition of it, especially in Ireland.