Fitness needs to be perceived as fun and games or we subconsciously avoid it.
If one tends to be a humorous person and you have a sense of humor the rest of your life then you can certainly lighten the load, I think, by bringing that to your trials and tribulations. It's easy to have a sense of humor when everything is going well.
As a father, my first priority is to help my sons set and attain personal goals so they will develop self-confidence and individual strength. Engaging in regular fitness activities with my children helps me fulfill those responsibilities.
There are psychological repercussions to illness and we need a little more help to get through the effects not only on the afflicted but on the family. And I think there's even a place for humor in that.
It's always been said that comedy comes mostly out of the dark side anyway.
The key to writing for Richard (Pryor) was to just push his buttons and then know when to push the buttons on your cassette recorder. You'd get him started, then surreptitiously start recording when he got inspired and started walking around the room and improvising in character. Then you'd get it all transcribed and take credit for it.
If a director can find the exact combination between the written word as a guideline and improvisational input from his actors, I think that's where you'll find the most successful work being done.
About 100 things that your kid will do that will surprise you and break your heart and it will be a combination of fact based therapy, medically advised kinds of passages accompanied by celebrity anecdotes and just some funny stuff to lighten the load.
My priority is to turn people - especially kids - on to sports and being active so they don't even have to think about it being good for their health. If people participate for the fun of it, and believe me - it is fun, then fitness programs will be much more successful.
I've never been a big fan of improvisation, because I think you appreciate the process and the cleverness of it more than the actual comedy in most cases.
I've always felt that improv looks and feels more clever when you're there to experience it live than when you have the degree of separation that television creates. Television raises expectations.
So we had psychiatrists and counselors and therapists around the set regularly, especially for those scenes in which Jason would be dealing with a patient to make sure we were doing it all appropriately.
My two boys were the same ages as the kids in the show. In real life or in between the breaks I was raising two kids off camera who were not unlike the two kids who were being paid to be my kids.
I worked for [Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame inductee] Tommy Hunter. It was a wonderful training program at the CBC, because they made sure they never paid you very much, so you had to do a lot of things, and that way you made some money. [A phone rings.] That's my agent right now telling me I've got a 13 cent residual from Tommy Hunter in 1969.
Family involvement is a valuable thing and playing together actively can be the '90s version of it. Instead of just watching, you can do it together... something we don't spend enough time on. We can motivate and excite each other about fitness.
I'm not able to go in with an act that I use month to month year to year all the time. It's constantly evolving and changing and that keeps me on my toes but certainly adds to the challenge.
I wouldn't call myself a standup in the presence of Jerry Seinfeld or Chris Rock, but I do my share of it and it has been and remains part of my activity and I like it.
If it is a first offense, you ground them and have a talk. The second offense would call for counseling.
I'm a big proponent of having a mental health component go along with whatever the physical realities are.
I'll be on my third honeymoon, so I'm more of an authority than I care to be.
On a selfish basis, I really enjoy sports and activity.
So there was a constant flow and a thin line there between reality and television and yes, much of what I was experiencing in my real life was also what was going on in the television show to the extent that I had to take writers advice and from the counselors around.
We look for opportunities to play together including basketball, tennis, swimming, riding bikes and touch football. I try to provide a loving environment where we can play. I think that's good on so many levels - emotionally, for family interactions and, of course, physically.
And introduce an element of cynicism and darkness into it and just realize that we're all vulnerable. We are humans. There is a finite end to this life and we're all going to face it and a little silliness can help.
