A: No, no, no, if they do anything it’ll end up
in there. I tell you anything, it’s how funny my
kids are. My wife is sharp as anything. And my
kids are… Leno thinks it’s genetic; baseball
player’s kid has a higher percentage chance
of going to the major leagues? My kids
learned timing, how to think of an angle instead of going head-on, and they throw out
one-liners that are just unbelievable, even
when they were liiiittle.
Q: Do you still do Q&A’s at the end of the
shows?
A: Yeah, that started in the comedy clubs, being the closer. Whether the guys before you
were good or bad, you’ve got to close it, and
there’s an ebb and flow to it. Early in my career I’d work with Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld,
all these guys, so I got to watch the masters
close a show in the comedy clubs. Hit ‘em
hard, lay back, hit ‘em hard, lay back. You can’t
pound people for 45 minutes without wearing them out. I noticed that people would go
to pick up the check at about 10 minutes left
in the show at the comedy clubs, so here I am
throwing out my best stuff and there’s 40%
of the audience listening. The other 60 are
picking up the tabs. So I stopped, started taking questions. Over a few years it’s evolved; I
don’t do as many shows anymore so I do my
material, I stop and get question and then I
try out new jokes. For the last decade I’ve just
taken my book up with me. I tell the audience,
“I’ve got a few jokes to run by you guys” and I
take notes. Once I’ve got everybody back and
got their attention, I bring it down hard and
close the show, and it’s the best way to close
a show.
Q: Have you gotten any good questions
you didn’t expect?
A: Mostly it’s about my show, I tell a joke and I
don’t go into great detail so I can move along
to another joke, so I hear, “Did that guy actually do what you said?” and I can say, “Oh yeah,
here’s what actually happened.” And some
are repeats after so many years, so I’m loaded
for bear. Sometimes people get nervous and
they’ll ask something they didn’t really mean
to ask, and that’s just comedy gold.
Q: Having a clean set, you probably don’t
attract so many hecklers and pull in more
of a clean, family-oriented kind of crowd,
right?
A: My act isn’t that conducive to bringing
in that kind of audience member, but it still
happens in a blue, blue moon. I’ve been doing this so long it doesn’t bother me at all. I
tell people to be quiet or I’ll have to get ‘em
thrown out. You’ve got one choice, stay and
play along or don’t play along. [laughs] When
people get out of hand, I just embarrass the
heck out of ‘em. I’m going to win every time,
and I’ve gotten to where I explain it to people now, “You don’t want to keep doing that,
number one I have a microphone and you
don’t, and number two I do this for a living.”
I’m really good at this! [laughs]
Q: You don’t mess with the guy with the
microphone, especially if when it’s somebody who gets paid to be clever.
A: Right!
Henry Cho will be at the Oxford Performing Arts
Center Oct. 22 at 7 PM. Tickets range from $10$20 and are available online at www.oxfordpac.org/henry-cho.html. Visit Henry’s website
at www.henrychocomedy.com to find out more
and see videos of his shows. ✻
October 2015
INSIGHT