Emo Philips
Emo Philips
Emo Philipsis an American entertainer and comedian born in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove. Much of his standup comedy stems from the use of paraprosdokians spoken in a wandering falsetto tone of voice and a confused, childlike delivery of his material to produce the intended comic timing in a manner invoking the 'wisdom of children' or the idiot savant...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth7 February 1956
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
My mom gave me one of those cloth calendars for the kitchen. It took me three hours to sew in a dental appointment.
When I was a kid my parents used to tell me, "Emo, don't go near the cellar door!" One day when they were away, I went up to the cellar door. And I pushed it and walked through and saw strange, wonderful things, things I had never seen before, like... trees. Grass. Flowers. The sun... that was nice... the sun..
Charlie Chaplin is the greatest artist of the 20th century. He takes me from laughter to tears in seconds. And he was one of the very first funny men. It's like the original violins were made in Cremona and there's never been any better since. Sometimes the best come right off the bat.
He taught me never to smile, which helps me when I visit disaster sites.
I'm very religious, you know. Now, OK, if by 'religious', you mean that I go to church every Sunday, read the bible faithfully, and I listen to Debbie Boone, umm, I'm not religious in that sense... But if by 'religious' you mean that I love others and try to help them whenever possible... Again, no. But if by 'religious' you mean that I like to eat coleslaw... Yeah, OK, OK!
I'd be in the backyard minding my own business. The other kids would call me names, like meatball head or neo-Calvinist. I'd run after them, but lucky for them the chain would snap my neck back...
I saw a psychologist once because I thought I had depression. It cost me $100. When I left, I realised that there's nothing he could have said that would cheer me up as much as if I found a $100 bill on my way home.
I try not to talk during the day when I have a show that night. My voice is my instrument, just like a saxophonist's instrument is his saxophone, plus also his voice, if he's the one between tunes that makes announcements.
I thought I was raptured up into the air today; turns out, it was just my gas oven exploding.
I'm not a Republican... but I am saving up to be one.
If you can make just one person laugh, then you are already doing better than Tony Danza.
It's amazing where a joke might come from. I find a lot of humour just by metaphorically turning things upside down or literally like my wife's cat.
My grandmother's brain was dead, but her heart was still beating. It was the first time we ever had a democrat in the family.
I told my wife she looks sexy with black fingernails. Now she thinks I slammed the car door on her hand on purpose.