GS: You're an Asian male who has strayed about as far as you can get from the safe professional/corporate track. How did your family respond to your becoming a standup comic?
HC: My decision to pursue a career in comedy was surprising to say the least
to my parents. I was supposed to snap out of my baseball/girl faze and buckle
down and study hard one day. When I told my dad I was dropping out of school to
go into comedy it was the hardest thing I had done at that point in my life.
It wasn't easy in many ways, but the most difficult thing was also having to
explain what a standup comic actually does. I told him, "You know they tell
jokes like on Johnny Carson". He replied, "You're on Johnny Carson?" I said no,
and he responded, "Didn't think so, you're wasting your time and also mine."
So to say he wasn't too happy with my decision is an understatement. My dad
would always say, "With your brain, that came from me and your mom... you could
have done anything." I would answer that comedians are very intelligent people,
you can stack our IQ's with any profession and we'd hold up quite well. But it
didn't have the same clout as Dr or Professor to my dad and his peers. He
wouldn't talk about what I did for the first year and a half. I was moving
through the comedy ranks really fast. Using the good work ethic my parents had
instilled in me to its full potential, finally. After that time, my dad told me to pursue what I was going after because he'd never seen me try as hard at
anything since baseball. So with that stamp of approval, I was bulletproof.
GS: You've said that you didn't want to build your comedy around being a Corean with a Southern accent. Has that decision helped or hurt your career?
HC: I never wanted to be the Asian comic or the Southern Corean comic. That's what I am, that's how I'm described to people who don't make the connection with just my name. I just wanted to be a comedian. A really good comedian. I used my background when I started, heck that's all I knew. I did a show in Vegas in 1989, been doing comedy less than 3 years. Steve Allen (creator, first host of The Tonight Show), came up to me and said, "Henry, I'm Steve Allen, you know the old saying that there's no such thing as a new joke, well, Kid, you've got about 12. No one has ever come from your angle, no one, ever. They'll show up down the road now that you've established yourself, but you are an original."
Among my peers, who are some of the greatest standup comics living today, I am just a comic, not the Asian, southern , Corean comic. I've always
wanted people to leave my show saying that I was funny, not that I was funny
but all I did was that one theme. Just this week I was told by some TV
producers that they keep trying to find another Henry Cho, but all the Asian comics
they see are all one joke wonders and that I don't even mention being Asian half
the time. Has it helped me more than hurt me by sticking to my guns? I can't
answer that, all I know is that I do things my way and that's the only way.
I've never cussed on stage..EVER! That's me, that's who I am and if that helps
or hurts I don't really care, as long as I get to stay in my own skin. I'm
fine.
GS: What have been the richest veins of material for your routines?
HC: The jokes that separate me from thousand of other comedians are my jokes
about being Corean, born and raised in Knoxville, TN. Those are some of my best
jokes, those are the jokes Steve Allen was talking about. I get my material
from my life. I do my best writing on stage. To me, my creative juices aren't
ever flowing any better than when I'm on stage with the rush going thru my
brain. I love going on stage with just a hint of an idea and making it into an
entire bit of comedy. I've always been a storyteller anyway, so this style suits
me the best. I think I tell stories because I'm a big fan of Bill Cosby and
Bob Newhart. My act mirrors my life on a daily basis. If something happens, and
I'm on stage that night, I'll talk about it and hopefully make it funny.
GS: How has your material evolved over the years?
HC: My material has evolved throughout the years. In the beginning I would do several minutes about my background. Now some shows I never even mention that
I'm Corean. I used to talk about being single and all the trials that come
along when you're young and single. Now I'm married with two little ones, so my
act parallels that part of my act. I've been able to rewrite or tweak certain
jokes I used in the past and still use them from time to time. The old days
were travel and all the adventures on the road. That's why so many comedians do
jokes about airplanes... that's what they know. You can always tell a new road
comic, by all the driving stories and you can always tell a new headliner, by
all the flying stories, because they've finally gotten to the point where they
get to fly now. I saw this and have always limited my travel jokes to
actually experiences, not the basic don't-you-hate-airline-food kind of stuff. Not saying it's not funny, it's just not the way I work.
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