TORONTO -- Forty years after launching the national standup comedy chain Yuk Yuk's, Mark Breslin sees many positive things happening in his clubs.

"There's never been so many people really interested in comedy," he says, crediting the Internet and social media with fostering fans' interest.

"Rather than having just an occasional interest in it, 'Hey, we should go out and see some comedy,' they actually follow it and they have their favourites and they know what they want and they know what they like."

He also feels the standup scene is more diverse than ever, noting: "There's never been more minorities, there's never been more women in comedy."

"Probably the best late-night talk show right now is being hosted by a Canadian and a Canadian woman, Samantha Bee," he says.

But Breslin also feels standup comedy has "gotten really, really soft," with too many comics delivering autobiographical material, "tiny little moments that don't really mean anything."

"Comics no longer have that big thing they're struggling and fighting against that they did when I started," says the 63-year-old, noting he likes when comedy involves "some kind of anger and passion."

"When I started, that culture was evil, mass culture was wrong. That was Vietnam, man, and we knew who the bad guys were and we knew who the good guys were.

"But nowadays we don't live in that kind of world and it's hard to find targets."

Breslin got his start running a comedy night at Toronto's Harbourfront in the 1970s, sporting lapels "out to here" and what looked like "a porn stache."

Eventually he and pal Joel Axler started up Yuk Yuk's in the basement of a community centre. They charged one dollar to get in and had a policy of "absolute free speech" for their comics.

Breslin says there was more freedom on the standup scene in the '70s because there was a lot less attention paid to it.

"When I chose it, there was no business, there was no business model," he says. "We were pioneering absolutely everything. And at the beginning, it's not like people thought it was so great.

"We were losing a third of our audience every night, they were just walking out in disgust and horror -- and mostly at my act, by the way."

In the '80s, comedy entered a boom period. That's when Yuk Yuk's opened most of its clubs (today it has 17 across Canada) and featured major talent, from Jim Carrey to Howie Mandel and Russell Peters.

The '90s were a contraction, "because a lot of people who sampled the product in the '80s decided it just wasn't for them," says Breslin. "So a lot of comedy clubs went bust, especially in the States."

Yuk Yuk's also saw pickets from feminist groups calling for "healthy humour" in that decade.

"Healthy humour? That's like a sober orgy. Who wants that?" wisecracks Breslin. "Humour is a way of dealing with your mental sickness in a very positive way."

Yes, Breslin knows and has seen the dark side of standup comedy, from depression to suicide to drugs. He recalls once seeing "Sam Kinison do smack in the kitchen at the old club."

He himself suffered from dark periods in his life that were lifted the moment he got onstage.

"We're always on the knife edge between madness and creativity and all artists are, I think," says Breslin. "But I think comics perhaps more than anybody."

Breslin says he always tells budding comics to be clean, sharp and sober onstage. They also have to put the hours into honing their craft, he says, noting "every word matters." (He once watched comedians Jerry Seinfeld and George Wallace spend an hour in a diner debating whether to use an "a" or "the" in his act.)

And he stresses to them: "You've got to find your enemy. You have to learn how to hate."

"Because in life you have to know how to love, but in work you have to know how to hate, in this job," says Breslin.

"You have to know what the target is. Every joke has a target and if it doesn't have a clearly defined target, it comes off mushy.

"I don't like mushy. I like sharp."