bigwigs, and banjos.
My first night at a real comedy club, though, I left out personal stories and the retelling of my week and basically just did my Groundlings act. I went onstage at the Comedy Store and said, “Hi, my name is Kathy Griffin and I’m from the Groundlings!” Then I would turn around, put a wig on, turn back to face the crowd, and then talk as my mom for a minute. Then I’d put on my cat’s-eye glasses and do my old Jewish lady at the Farmer’s Market. Nobody did characters at the Comedy Store. It was completely inappropriate. But I got laughs. Maybe there was something to this!
Then I bombed for two years.
Open mike nights categorically sucked, at least for me. The problem was I was doing my act like I was still trying to get on Saturday Night Live. (I’ve still never been asked to host that show, although one of my recurring D-list moments is when people stop me in the airport and tell me they loved me on SNL. I never know if they think I’m Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, or Chris Kattan. I just say “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed me as Mango.”) But Lisa and Judy continued to encourage me with their support, saying, “Just be yourself. Try to do the stand-up that comes naturally to you, which is more like story-telling.”
Andy Dick, Janeane, and me at a coffeehouse where we often performed.
Okay, then. No more doing wacky characters. I’m never going to be on Saturday Night Live. I was going to go up onstage and just talk about the shit that happened to me that day.
In the early ’90s, stand-up comedy was in a boom time. Stand-up shows were on several cable networks, from MTV to Lifetime to, of course, Comedy Central, and people around the country were getting to know the names Kevin Meaney, Judy Tenuta, Julie Brown, Emo Philips, Bobcat Goldthwait, Richard Jeni, Richard Lewis, Brian Regan, Ray Romano, and Rita Rudner, among many others. When it came to seeing these comics live, all anybody knew were the big-name clubs, and if you wanted to break in as a comedian, those were the places to be. The Improv chain was popular then, and there were so many of them. Open mike night at the Santa Monica Improv was so humiliating, though. You had to go and stand in line in the afternoon and get a number like in a lottery, and then you just went on. I knew I’d hit the stage between the prop comic and the comic who talks about how he wants to kill his wife. Plus, you had maybe five minutes tops, or sometimes only three. Brutal. Really, really short sets. Afterward, you’d get notes from the co-owner of the Improv, Mark Lonow.
I would go there, talk about whatever happened to me that day, whatever I thought was funny, and of course I’d tank. One time, Mark said to me afterward, “You just talked about what happened to you today. You have to talk about things people can relate to.”
I remembered that the comic before me had started his act saying, “So, I got a ticket on the way over here!” I was pretty sure that hadn’t happened. So I brought that up. I said to Mark, “When that comedian said that, I as an audience member know he didn’t get a ticket on the way over here.”
“Well, yeah,” he said, “but you’ve got to make up stuff, make it relatable to people. Tell people you got a ticket on the way here.”
I said, “But I didn’t get a ticket on the way here. This other funny thing happened, though.”
“People can’t relate to that. Everybody’s gotten a ticket.”
“But I fucked a guy in a donut shop. No one’s with me on that?”
That was a weird conversation, like we were speaking different languages. But it lets you know the problem I have to this day. I’ll sit there and say, “As if I’m the only person who’s fucked five guys from donut shops.” I always think what I’m saying is funny and relatable, but really it’s just funny and not necessarily relatable. And this wasn’t passing muster with two-drink-minimum crowds who want routine jokes from a
My first night at a real comedy club, though, I left out personal stories and the retelling of my week and basically just did my Groundlings act. I went onstage at the Comedy Store and said, “Hi, my name is Kathy Griffin and I’m from the Groundlings!” Then I would turn around, put a wig on, turn back to face the crowd, and then talk as my mom for a minute. Then I’d put on my cat’s-eye glasses and do my old Jewish lady at the Farmer’s Market. Nobody did characters at the Comedy Store. It was completely inappropriate. But I got laughs. Maybe there was something to this!
Then I bombed for two years.
Open mike nights categorically sucked, at least for me. The problem was I was doing my act like I was still trying to get on Saturday Night Live. (I’ve still never been asked to host that show, although one of my recurring D-list moments is when people stop me in the airport and tell me they loved me on SNL. I never know if they think I’m Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, or Chris Kattan. I just say “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed me as Mango.”) But Lisa and Judy continued to encourage me with their support, saying, “Just be yourself. Try to do the stand-up that comes naturally to you, which is more like story-telling.”
Andy Dick, Janeane, and me at a coffeehouse where we often performed.
Okay, then. No more doing wacky characters. I’m never going to be on Saturday Night Live. I was going to go up onstage and just talk about the shit that happened to me that day.
In the early ’90s, stand-up comedy was in a boom time. Stand-up shows were on several cable networks, from MTV to Lifetime to, of course, Comedy Central, and people around the country were getting to know the names Kevin Meaney, Judy Tenuta, Julie Brown, Emo Philips, Bobcat Goldthwait, Richard Jeni, Richard Lewis, Brian Regan, Ray Romano, and Rita Rudner, among many others. When it came to seeing these comics live, all anybody knew were the big-name clubs, and if you wanted to break in as a comedian, those were the places to be. The Improv chain was popular then, and there were so many of them. Open mike night at the Santa Monica Improv was so humiliating, though. You had to go and stand in line in the afternoon and get a number like in a lottery, and then you just went on. I knew I’d hit the stage between the prop comic and the comic who talks about how he wants to kill his wife. Plus, you had maybe five minutes tops, or sometimes only three. Brutal. Really, really short sets. Afterward, you’d get notes from the co-owner of the Improv, Mark Lonow.
I would go there, talk about whatever happened to me that day, whatever I thought was funny, and of course I’d tank. One time, Mark said to me afterward, “You just talked about what happened to you today. You have to talk about things people can relate to.”
I remembered that the comic before me had started his act saying, “So, I got a ticket on the way over here!” I was pretty sure that hadn’t happened. So I brought that up. I said to Mark, “When that comedian said that, I as an audience member know he didn’t get a ticket on the way over here.”
“Well, yeah,” he said, “but you’ve got to make up stuff, make it relatable to people. Tell people you got a ticket on the way here.”
I said, “But I didn’t get a ticket on the way here. This other funny thing happened, though.”
“People can’t relate to that. Everybody’s gotten a ticket.”
“But I fucked a guy in a donut shop. No one’s with me on that?”
That was a weird conversation, like we were speaking different languages. But it lets you know the problem I have to this day. I’ll sit there and say, “As if I’m the only person who’s fucked five guys from donut shops.” I always think what I’m saying is funny and relatable, but really it’s just funny and not necessarily relatable. And this wasn’t passing muster with two-drink-minimum crowds who want routine jokes from a
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