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BACK ISSUES INTERVIEWS Stand-Up Comedians Jim Norton Robert Kelly Donnell Rawlings Brad Stine Tammy Pescatelli Leighann Lord George Sarris Nick DiPaolo Russ Meneve Shang and more By Tasha Harris, NYC Comedy Journalist STAGE TIME The Magazine That Stands Up For Comedy |
I knew that when they did the three-way head-to-head.
They didn’t show everything that happened with that either. There are a lot of things that happen,
if the public knew… I’m not going to tell everything that happened; but trust me—me and Alonzo
were not going to challenge each other. Alonzo was my toughest competition and he thought I
was his toughest competition without the “we’re both black thing.” We knew they would make us
go up against each other.
What is your response to critics who find your material offensive to women and do you think it
affected the number of votes you received?
I think if America was really voting for me, I would have won. I don’t think America was voting for
me. I think the winner of the Wild Card was determined before they even had the Wild Card.
As far as women voting for me, I do a show that is kinda bold. I like to think I’m that voice of
the average guy who is scared to say this stuff; but this is what he’s thinking. Really, I’m an
informant. I’m trying to help the ladies out.
How has Last Comic changed your life?
People have an idea of who I am now. I have to step it up with my plane tickets. People are
looking at me because I wasn’t in first class. The peer pressure to be in first class makes me
spend the extra $500 or $600 dollars because I was riding in coach and this old lady knew me
from the show. She says, “Hey, you’re Corey, you were so funny.” She looked me up and down
because we’re in coach; she goes “What happened? Do you make money?”
What do you want get out of being on the show?
I’ve been on the verge of having a sitcom for the last four years; but a lot of times, they pass
on my show because I’m not famous. My talent has always caught the interest of studios and
networks but they never push it all the way through. I’m hoping Last Comic Standing pushes me
through on the sitcom thing. I have accomplished everything I wanted on the show.
When I was eliminated, I still felt like I won because the crowd booed when I didn’t move on.
When I was eliminated, they asked the crowd to leave. That’s not the crowd sitting in the
audience when they’re giving the results. That’s the crew and the producers. A lot of people
don’t know that. They gave the results in front of crowd and the crowd didn’t approve.
They thought I should have moved on and that was enough to make me not feel bad.
You have been doing shows with Todd Glass. How do you like working with Todd?
It was a little hard the first show because I’m a headliner. I use to going on stage and doing
45 minutes to an hour. I’m not used to splitting the time with people. I’ve established myself
as a headliner at the Improv, it’s hard to do that, and you’re not famous. It’s not that you’re
not headlining; but you’re sharing the bill with someone else, hoping the tickets sales increase.
My manager thought it would be a good idea, so I’m like “I’ll play this game for a little while.”
In what ways have you grown as a comedian?
There are black comedians that can only perform in front of a black audience and there are white
comedians that can only perform in front of white people. The key to success for me is to deliver
to both. I don’t care if you’re black or white…relationships, which is what I talk about…men and
women don’t get along.
There are some in the black community who know me and I’ve done Leno three times, so there
were people from the white community who know me. But the [club] managers didn’t know me.
It was reported that you played a cruel, practical joke on a semi-finalist.
Some people say I played a cruel joke on my buddy Vladimir [Khlynin]. Some said it was cruel
and to others, it worked; but the producers of the show were with it. They geeked me on to do it.
It almost went haywire because my friend went too far for the laugh. He took Vladimir’s coat
because Vladimir wouldn’t give up his money.
By this not being a real robbery, my friend was like “give me the coat then.” We’re running back
to the hotel and Vladimir flags down a cop—and then it got real. The cop was like “get in the car”
and drove down this one-way street. I ran as fast as I could and waved down the car. The other
officer was a lady and she told the guy to stop. So she got out of the car and talked to me and
I told her “this is a joke that is going haywire. He wasn’t robbed. This is something we’re doing
for a TV show, Last Comic Standing. I’m calling for the producers. You know they didn’t come.
They didn’t show everything that happened with that either. There are a lot of things that happen,
if the public knew… I’m not going to tell everything that happened; but trust me—me and Alonzo
were not going to challenge each other. Alonzo was my toughest competition and he thought I
was his toughest competition without the “we’re both black thing.” We knew they would make us
go up against each other.
What is your response to critics who find your material offensive to women and do you think it
affected the number of votes you received?
I think if America was really voting for me, I would have won. I don’t think America was voting for
me. I think the winner of the Wild Card was determined before they even had the Wild Card.
As far as women voting for me, I do a show that is kinda bold. I like to think I’m that voice of
the average guy who is scared to say this stuff; but this is what he’s thinking. Really, I’m an
informant. I’m trying to help the ladies out.
How has Last Comic changed your life?
People have an idea of who I am now. I have to step it up with my plane tickets. People are
looking at me because I wasn’t in first class. The peer pressure to be in first class makes me
spend the extra $500 or $600 dollars because I was riding in coach and this old lady knew me
from the show. She says, “Hey, you’re Corey, you were so funny.” She looked me up and down
because we’re in coach; she goes “What happened? Do you make money?”
What do you want get out of being on the show?
I’ve been on the verge of having a sitcom for the last four years; but a lot of times, they pass
on my show because I’m not famous. My talent has always caught the interest of studios and
networks but they never push it all the way through. I’m hoping Last Comic Standing pushes me
through on the sitcom thing. I have accomplished everything I wanted on the show.
When I was eliminated, I still felt like I won because the crowd booed when I didn’t move on.
When I was eliminated, they asked the crowd to leave. That’s not the crowd sitting in the
audience when they’re giving the results. That’s the crew and the producers. A lot of people
don’t know that. They gave the results in front of crowd and the crowd didn’t approve.
They thought I should have moved on and that was enough to make me not feel bad.
You have been doing shows with Todd Glass. How do you like working with Todd?
It was a little hard the first show because I’m a headliner. I use to going on stage and doing
45 minutes to an hour. I’m not used to splitting the time with people. I’ve established myself
as a headliner at the Improv, it’s hard to do that, and you’re not famous. It’s not that you’re
not headlining; but you’re sharing the bill with someone else, hoping the tickets sales increase.
My manager thought it would be a good idea, so I’m like “I’ll play this game for a little while.”
In what ways have you grown as a comedian?
There are black comedians that can only perform in front of a black audience and there are white
comedians that can only perform in front of white people. The key to success for me is to deliver
to both. I don’t care if you’re black or white…relationships, which is what I talk about…men and
women don’t get along.
There are some in the black community who know me and I’ve done Leno three times, so there
were people from the white community who know me. But the [club] managers didn’t know me.
It was reported that you played a cruel, practical joke on a semi-finalist.
Some people say I played a cruel joke on my buddy Vladimir [Khlynin]. Some said it was cruel
and to others, it worked; but the producers of the show were with it. They geeked me on to do it.
It almost went haywire because my friend went too far for the laugh. He took Vladimir’s coat
because Vladimir wouldn’t give up his money.
By this not being a real robbery, my friend was like “give me the coat then.” We’re running back
to the hotel and Vladimir flags down a cop—and then it got real. The cop was like “get in the car”
and drove down this one-way street. I ran as fast as I could and waved down the car. The other
officer was a lady and she told the guy to stop. So she got out of the car and talked to me and
I told her “this is a joke that is going haywire. He wasn’t robbed. This is something we’re doing
for a TV show, Last Comic Standing. I’m calling for the producers. You know they didn’t come.