What, me comedy?
Why I love comedy.
As a comedian, people will often ask you who your favorite comic is. I actually enjoy that question because it gives me an opportunity to introduce a comedy fan to another comedian they might not know about yet. I’ll always throw out some names like Gary Gulman and Ted Alexandro. There are other reasons why I got into stand-up comedy though and I thought it might be fun to talk about them and show some love their way.
Growing up, I was almost force-fed to watch the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, the Little Rascals, Laurel & Hardy, and Abbott and Costello by my dad. My earliest memory of comedy and just laughing in general are from these silly guys my dad would always have on the TV. “Was your dad funny, Brian?” Not really. He’s a typical caveman. Barely talks. Grunts a lot. But he absolutely loved, and still does, all of these. They’re still funny to me to this day. I watched a Three Stooges clip like a year ago and I was cracking up at how absurd and crazy it is. They all still hold up today and are somewhat lost to time. I know a few have been rebooted, mostly poorly, but nothing holds up like the original.
When it comes to actual stand-up, my first memories are watching Stand-Up Spotlight on VH-1. Yes, seriously. I wasn’t really allowed to watch any late night HBO stand-up when I was a kid so when this came on the TV at a reasonable hour, I was hooked. Bobby Collins was the funniest person on Earth to me. I’ve also probably seen him live about 4 or 5 times and he always crushes to this day. Most of the act is the same as it was 30+ years ago, but hey! It works. I don’t know why VH-1 had a stand-up show on but it was super influential to me. I can’t really remember any of the other acts (I’m sure a few of them went on to become great and successful comedians) but Bobby Collins was the host (after Rosie O’Donnell I believe) and that will always stick with me. When I got older and could watch HBO comedy specials, that was it. My life was changed. I also remember how hysterical Ted Alexandro’s first Comedy Central Presents was, which made me want to do stand-up.
MST3K will always be my favorite TV show. If I was stuck on an island and could only have one TV show to watch, it would be MST3K. Or Baywatch. But probably MST3K. I have very clear memories of discovering this show for the first time. When I saw Hercules riding on his horse and 2 robots and a human were making funny noises, I was like, “What is this???” and I’ve been a huge fan ever since. The fact that it’s still a thing on its own (sorta) and lives on also in Rifftrax and The Mads Are Back makes me so happy. There’s nothing funnier than this show and all of these people involved and I’m so happy they still get to do it and keep bringing laughter to us all.
My favorite TV shows growing up as a kid were Alf and Perfect Strangers. I don’t really need to say anything else about them since they’re two of the greatest and most hilarious sitcoms of all time. Alf still holds up! It’s super funny. Go back and watch the original series. I dare you. It’s very funny.
I still have volumes 1 thru 38, plus many ‘Treasury’ books, of Garfield. Nothing made me laugh more than this fat, grumpy cat. I used to check these books out at my elementary school library all the time and I specifically remember my teacher in 2nd grade not letting me one time and telling me to “read a real book for once.” No thanks, lady. These literary treasures also got me into Calvin & Hobbes, the Far Side, etc. I loved comic books but also really loved comic strips like this. The daily and Sunday funnies were my favorite things to read in the newspaper as a kid besides the NBA box scores (I was very cool). I used to also check out truly classic books like “101 Spooky Jokes” and “101 Knock Knock Jokes” in between my Garfield binges. (Side note: Alf the comic book issue #48 was banned because it looks like Alf is…doing stuff to a seal. Against its will. Here. I still have a lot of my Alf comics but sadly I don’t have this one.)
Everything I’ve mentioned so far (and we can also include video games and TMNT obviously) were huge parts of my childhood and my life now in comedy. But I think the MAIN reason I love comedy so much and do what I do, and this may sound crazy, is because of Weird Al. My dad had the first Weird Al album on vinyl. Again, I have no idea why he had this. He loves “real musicians like John Cougar Mellencamp” but I can remember sitting by the record player and just listening to every song on this record over and over and over. To this day, Weird Al can do no wrong in my eyes. I play him all the time in my house and make my kids listen to him and we sing his greatest hits all the time. Or at least I do. He’s been silly for 40 years and has made an amazing career from it. We all owe Al (and Bronson Pinchot) a huge debt of gratitude for making the world a better place.
I don’t have any witty ending to this entry. I just wanted to write about comedy and what makes me laugh and give a little peak into why I am who I am today. So go out there and laugh. You got anything like this in your life that makes you laugh or brings you back to your childhood? Leave a comment!
We had very similar tastes growing up! I was a comedy, comics, and video games kid. Though a lot of it went over my head, I loved Bloom County and had all the collections. At Comic-Con one year, I met Berkeley Breathed and told him how big a fan I was. I even had the Opus and Bill screensaver. He apologized and hoped it didn’t destroy my computer. (It didn’t, but even if it had, I wouldn’t have held it against him.)