I was listening to a Monte Pyton autobiography CD yesterday, when I heard
something that made me realize why where all here & so excited about Al's & TBITB's Grammy.
Eric Idle: "I mean, when you make an audience laugh,
they love you, they really do love you, and that's one of the nice things about being a comedian,
is that people, when they see you, smile and laugh and thank you 'cause they
really do love you. Usually you've touched them at a time when they needed some kind of reassurance or they wanted something, or they were feeling depressed and then you made them laugh, and then they feel better. So, there
is a sort of healing thing to it."
See?

Pretty simple, isn't it.
sg