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Funnyman Henry Cho says his dad wasn't too psyched about his decision to drop out of college to become a comedian--until he landed on Leno.
Hot comic comes to Rooster T's
By Sam Scott
Henry Cho, who performs this Sunday and Monday at Rooster T. Feathers, avoided the struggles most standup comics endure on the way to the top. He was successful from the time he walked offstage at his first amateur night.
Cho, who has appeared on The Tonight Show and Showtime, headlined in Vegas, and acted in McHale's Navy, a movie with Tom Arnold, appears at Rooster T's on Sunday and Monday nights--ordinarily the slowest nights of the week at the El Camino Real comedy club. But he is sure to pack the house.
"I actually got hired the first night I went up on stage," he says with his trademark Southern twang in full effect.
"My friends were like 'What are you doing? You're not even funny,' and I said 'I know, but I can tell a story.'"
Cho did well to trust himself and his stories. His act caught the eye of the comedy club's owner. Two days later he was getting paid to perform. It was a stroke of luck, he says, that even some of comedy's greatest talents find incredible.
"Leno, Seinfeld and Shandling and those guys said if I ever had to write a book they would write it for me because I know nothing of what the troubles are like."
Despite his early success, Cho did have to face the woe of his father, a successful immigrant not given to embracing the idea of his son dropping out of college to be a comedian. Cho says he has sixteen doctors in his family and his father expected him to join them.
"He wouldn't really talk to me the first year and that's no lie," Cho says. "After I got on television and started making money, then he was fine."
If his Asian heritage put more pressure on him to get a professional job, he says it also provided him with plenty of material for his humor. One of Cho's most popular anecdotes, which he says people always request, is telling how he hated playing soldiers when he was young. In the post-WWII, post-Korean War, post-Vietnam era, the question, "Who wants to be the bad guy?" always had a very obvious answer--Henry.
"My high school was .0001 percent Asian," Cho says. "I was the only Asian face I saw until I got to college."
He says he likes to joke about his background without insulting it.
"It's not funny that my dad mispronounces R's and L's" he says. "It is funny however if my dad thinks "quiche" is "quickie," which is what happened at a restaurant."
Cho credits some of his success to his unique background. There were no other Asians raised in the South making the rounds at the comedy clubs.
"Steve Allen came up to me in Vegas, and said, 'You know how there are no new jokes? You just told 15 of them."
Cho doesn't make the rounds like he used to. He performs occasionally, spending much of his time on his Tennessee farm with his expectant wife.
"That's one thing about comedy; once you get to a certain level, you make a great living."
Not that he's putting up his heels every day. He's hitting Rooster T. as part of a tour to try out new material for a comedy album to be released next year.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
