Baron Vaughn: Sometimes I have young comics that ask me, "What should...

If you're driving down the street, you keep the neck forward. So that way you can clear out the lanes.

Baron Vaughn

necks driving way

Shrimp are the insects of the ocean. They're bottom feeders. So they're delicious, but they're the bugs of the sea.

Baron Vaughn

shrimp ocean sea

Surprisingly I've never really stolen anything. One time when I was really young, I was walking down the street, found a GI Joe in the mud, and took it home and I was like, "I got a GI Joe!" And then my great grandmother was like, "You stole that." I said, "What are you talking about?" and she said, "That's not yours." I'm like, "But I found it!" She's like, "But it's not yours, and therefore you stole it." So I just went and put it right back in the mud where I found it.

Baron Vaughn

grandmother home talking

There's a difference between a sense of humor and a sense of funny. A sense of humor is knowing what makes you laugh and a sense of funny is knowing what makes other people laugh. The journey of comedy, in a sense, is negotiating those two worlds.

Baron Vaughn

journey laughing people

You're the hero of your own story. I had let go of my own story from my own childhood and whatever anger I had and I began to see it from a very different place. It's really easy to be like "This thing happened to me! Look what they did to me or are doing to me." These are such powerful ideas and it's so easy to hold onto them forever. When I let go of those ideas it was easier to see my childhood from different points of view.

Baron Vaughn

powerful hero letting-go

When you do comedy, the audience is not your boss. They are your collaborators and when you collaborate with someone you don't have to listen to everything they think or say. Sometimes you're not getting the laughs you want or at the place you want but that doesn't mean it's not funny. It means you haven't explored it enough. I'll get laughs in the places I don't want them and that makes me realize the direction I want to go in.

Baron Vaughn

laughing mean thinking

I can't do Christopher Walken impressions anymore, thanks [Barack] Obama.

Baron Vaughn

thanks barack impression

I think Batman Returns is right for riffs. I love it but it's the ultimate Tim Burton movie. There is so much that happens that's crazy and there are a ton of things to riff.

Baron Vaughn

return crazy thinking

There are a bunch of different movies I feel that way about. However, there is a debate because as you may know after MST3K ended there have been things like Cinematic Titanic that are the children and the grandchildren of this way of dissecting movies and making fun of them and in a way celebrating the absurdity of those movies as well. There are certain movies that sort of fit into the MST3K paradigm which is hidden gems, these weird horror/sci-fi/fantasy movies.

Baron Vaughn

different fun children

The album [Blaxistential crisis] artwork is by a friend of mine who is a brilliant artist named Sara Pocock. We've been friends for a couple of years and she worked with me on the animation. I believe she's still working over at BuzzFeed.

Baron Vaughn

couple artist believe

Basically I made her [ Sara Pocock] listen to funk music for a good month, a nonstop stream of George Clinton. I was talking about the art from...if you look at the art from George Clinton albums there are two or three artists he worked with...I made her listen to my album too so all the images are from jokes I made. I wanted it to look like the thoughts that are coming out of my brain which is what comedy is anyway.

Baron Vaughn

talking two art

When you're a young comedian the first thing you want to do is get a laugh.

Baron Vaughn

comedian want laughing

As you go on you realize "Okay I know how to get laughs but am I saying things I want to say? Am I writing jokes that I like?" You get to a point that is that so you move on.

Baron Vaughn

writing i-like-you moving

Every laugh is not equal. They come from different places. That's sort of the challenge I go towards, making sure the laughs are for the reasons I want. It becomes a back and forth dance with the audience.

Baron Vaughn

different challenges laughing

The audience is your first collaborator with the material. If that makes sense.

Baron Vaughn

audience make-sense firsts

I just got diagnosed with tendonitis which is such an insulting diagnosis. Just point to my shoulder and say "old."

Baron Vaughn

shoulders diagnosis insulting

Netflix is very protective with their information .

Baron Vaughn

protective netflix information

I read recently that I was born in Arizona. I wasn't born in Arizona. I was born in New Mexico, but I can understand why people might confuse those two Southwestern desert states.

Baron Vaughn

desert two people

When it was announced that Michael Keaton was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. When they announced that Val Kilmer was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. When it was announced that George Clooney was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. When it was announced that Christian Bale was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. And everyone was mad about Ben Affleck. So every single incarnation, people are going to be mad; you just can't do anything about it.

Baron Vaughn

mad christian people

Anyone who buys a ticket can just go in there, and I don't like everyone, so I always see concerts as like, I'm going to get punched, I'm going to get elbowed, I'm going to get stepped on, get spilled on, someone's going to hit me with their body odor or something.

Baron Vaughn

odor tickets body

Sometimes I have young comics that ask me, "What should I do when I meet an agent or a manager and they ask me stuff?" And I say, "Well, they always usually ask, 'Where do you see yourself in five years, 10 years, 15 years?' And it's good to have an answer for that."