Quotes

[Of Tom DeLay]: My God! I mean, come on. From what I understand - having not met him yet, we go in different political circles - he and his wife are fans of the show.

[When asked whom he favors on Dancing with the Stars (2005)]: I like every single one of them equally. Of course it's not true, but that's the Hollywood answer.

They all know I love them. That's why I can go off on them and we'll go out for a drink after the show.

[on his comparison to Johnny Carson]: Johnny is the one. He's the gold standard for anyone who loves live TV and reactive comedy. Johnny never made his guests look bad. He'd save them, but he'd do it deftly and with humor.

[When he responded if he was interested in hosting a late night talk show]: No, it's a war zone out there. At 54, I'm outside of the demographic. If I do anything else, I'd like to get back into radio or acting.

[on America's Funniest Home Videos (1989)]: We call this show 'the annuity.' That's its nickname at our house.

[Of his earlier job]: I was doing my typical ad-libbing, and his mother leaned over and told him, 'You should hire him.' She still thinks I owe her 10 percent of everything I make!

[on both the new and classic clips of America's Funniest Home Videos (1989)]: The cutting-room floor has a lot of extras that could never air at that hour on commercial television. I told the producers and writers, 'Plot out what clips you want to run, but we're not going to have a script. Bob and I will just riff.' It was two friends hanging out and seeing where it went.

[on the departure of Samantha Harris, who was his co-hostess]: I'm going to miss Samantha. We had a nice rapport off-camera and on, I could see that her workload was picking up on The Insider (2004) and then she started doing Entertainment Tonight (1981) Weekend. As somebody who's been known to juggle a few jobs myself, I know that that can pull you in eight different directions.

[on the definition of ratings of reality television]: I'm not saying the genre's not strong, but there'll be a point where our numbers aren't what they used to be and we settle into a different plateau, and then it'll finally, ultimately, go away. As a genre, hey, we could've been having this conversation 30 years ago, talking about the invincibility of Westerns. Everything changes.

People see me on TV and I'm this calm, level headed guy. Honestly, that's the furthest thing from who I am. For a long time I struggled with anger and stress. It was killing me, figuratively and literally. I needed to do something before losing my job, my family and my life. I started meditating and getting into yoga. I'm not into religion, but I think the feeling I get with meditation and yoga is similar to what a religious person experiences in prayer or at church. A peaceful, unexplainable zen.