Humor & Life Quote by Dave Foley

There is a quiet radicalism in Foley's version of "a really good idea": it isn't a genius auteur moment, it's a social contract. The line rejects the usual comedy mythology where the funniest person in the room wins by domination. Instead, it frames humor as infrastructure - a set of habits that lets good ideas survive the ego weather that usually kills them.

The subtext is about power without sounding like management-speak. "Everyone would back it" is less kumbaya than enforcement mechanism: in a troupe, support is currency, and reciprocity keeps the machine running. Foley is describing a culture where status comes from service, not spotlight. That's why he pivots to the practical: "if you were in somebody else's scene", you shift roles. You stop being the performer and become the rigging crew. The hardest-working person in the background becomes the one who makes the laugh land.

Context matters: Kids in the Hall's sketch ecosystem depended on ensemble elasticity - quick character switches, odd premises, cross-dressing, and a willingness to commit to someone else's bit without telegraphing irony. In that environment, sabotage isn't dramatic; it's death by half-commitment. Foley is naming the antidote: communal discipline.

The intent, then, is almost pedagogical, aimed at younger comedians obsessed with "killing". He's arguing that the real flex is making someone else kill, because the audience doesn't just reward jokes; it rewards cohesion. And cohesion is a choice, repeated scene after scene.