| Photo by: Michael Bezjian |
Tommy Davidson has made a good living being funny.
He was one of the original stars of "In Living Color." He’s been a voice actor and a movie
actor playing opposite Halle Berry.
When he talks about the audiences he encounters in Ohio, he’s serious.
That’s his core audience, Davidson explained in a telephone interview Wednesday, "working class,
mixed race."
"In all those cities you won’t find anyone who’s not busted their ass on some kind of job," he
said. And being in the industrial heartland, they’ve had their share of setbacks.
"Any time a city like Cleveland has to rely on one sports figure to bring them up one rung on the
economic ladder you know the city’s in trouble."
They understand what it means to be a neighbor, Davidson, 48, said.
So, he comes for the same reasons politicians stump in the state?
"You better not call me that," he said laughing.
Davidson headlines at the Funny Bone at Levis Commons in Perrysburg, with shows today at 8 and 10:30 p.m.
and Saturday at 7 and 10 p.m. Tickets are $20. Call (419) 931-3474.
"Ohio is always a guaranteed laugh," he said. "It’s a lot of non-judgmental happy folks.
It’s easy to make them laugh."
They come to the show wanting to be entertained, to forget the hard times.
People in the Midwest are "progressive because they have felt the result of unemployment,
deunionization, the real estate crunch. … It’s easy to sit in Orange County (California) and Dallas
and be right wing."
Not that his comedy has an ideological bent. He sticks to the physical comedy. His Obama impression can
get a laugh in Ohio and Dallas. "It’s my ‘Sesame Street’ approach to politics," Davidson said.
Davidson did recently score prime play on the website Politico. The entertainer was being interviewed
outside Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he’d gone to visit soldiers being treated for
injuries sustained in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "You see the end result of war."
He was not there to perform – not like the shows he’s done for troops around the world – but just to
visit with the patients.
"It’s more of a privilege that Walter Reed would open their doors and let me sit down and talk with
the men. I never thought I’d be in a position to do something like that."
When Davidson was a teenager he wasn’t thinking about being funny for a living at all. He was focused on
being a boxer.
He ran into his old coach recently who told him he was the kid with the best skills, the brightest
future, maybe even an Olympic medal winner.
But the coach wasn’t surprised that Davidson had ended up a comedian. "’All you would do was joke
and laugh all the time,’" the coach told Davidson. He’d joke during training, on the way to bouts,
before the bout and joke on the way home. Only being serious in the ring where he’d win.
In 1987 he was working as an assistant chef in a hotel when the chef told him he should try out his humor
on stage. So he made his debut at an open mic at a Washington, D.C., strip club. He’d found his home.
While he’s involved in a variety of media, and said he doesn’t have a favorite, stand up comedy is the
only avenue that allows him complete creative control.
"I can do whatever comes to mind," he said. "Every other vehicle is controlled, edited and
changed by someone else."
His live performances are about half scripted and half spontaneous. Right now he’s in the process of
working up new material for a Comedy Central special, and the stage is his sketchbook.
"I stand there and let the comedy muse take control," he said, writing out the best bits later.
"My comedy is guided by the audience," Davidson said. When he’s facing "a bunch of working
people that want to have a good laugh, it makes a difference."
