New York

Comedy should be funny, Colin Quinn says: “It’s supposed to elicit laughs.” If that sounds obvious, Mr. Quinn says many of his fellow comedians see the matter differently. “I feel like a lot of people now are saying, ‘You know what? Comedy is supposed to be uplifting,’ ” Mr. Quinn says. “It’s like, what are you, the new moral majority all of a sudden?”

Mr. Quinn, 59 and a veteran of “Saturday Night Live,” is holding court at the Olive Tree Cafe in Greenwich Village. The narrow, dark restaurant is a second home for many comedians because it is narrow and dark but also because it is connected—by a staircase and a common owner—to the Comedy Cellar, where big names and no-names alike come to try out new material. Around the corner is the 391-seat Minetta Lane Theatre, where Mr. Quinn stars in a one-man stage show, “Red State Blue State.”

Mr. Quinn receives a steady stream of well-wishers to his table, including a young comedian to whom he introduces me as a writer from The Wall Street Journal. “Oh, they never get it wrong,” the young man quips. Mr. Quinn erupts in laughter. He loves to laugh.

That’s why it doesn’t sit well with him that comedy “has gotten very combative,” thanks to “fundamentalists” who insist on determining what constitutes “acceptable comedy.” The comedian’s job “is not to dictate to people how to react to comedy,” he insists. “Your job is just to do your thing, and get laughs the way you want to get them.”