When it Comes to Laughter, Chad Briggs Brings It

In 2009, beloved actor Peter Boyle landed in purgatory, picked a fight with a carton of eggs and won the fourth season of Impress These Apes, the much better Chicago version of Last Comic Standing. In 2010, D.K. Ediger, a licensed "accidentalist" whose '80s-style videos warn children away from hazardous tomfoolery, was a semi-finalist for the national Andy Kaufman Award. Just last month, celebrity chef Flobby Ray bested Jim Gaffigan in the comedy game show, "Don't Spit the Water" * during a special segment on the WGN Morning News. What's the connection? They are all alter egos of award-winning comedian Chad Briggs who headlines Comedy at the Mette on March 9.

Given the versatility of his characters, you won't be surprised to learn that the man who created them excels in all the comedy forms that made Chicago famous: sketch, improv and stand-up. The March 9th show will feature Briggs' stand-up which, like his characters, finds the poignant truths of daily life and makes them hilarious in the most relatable and unexpected of ways. Just a small, partial list of his material includes his new found love of slow cooking, sports, life lessons and other oddities on the C.T.A., and details of the ups and downs of his recent expansion into theater and commercials (Walmart snagged his talents for the holidays). Acting, he says, is a natural extension of his love for developing interesting characters. Speaking of which, one of his first theater roles was a clown in marriage therapy.

That Briggs has the capacity to create so many characters is apt given he has the energy, drive and talent of more than one person. There is no stalling between idea and implementation. Says Briggs, "The great thing about stand-up is ... if I have an idea this afternoon, I can go up and do it tonight." In addition to being a cast member of Chicago Underground Comedy, he was also featured at the TBS Just For Laughs Festival, was named one of the top stand-ups in Chicago by www.comedy.com and appears regularly at venues throughout the Chicagoland area. He kindly took time out to talk about what it takes to be a comedian in Chicago, including a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what happens when comedians gather in Bozo's old dressing room.

Q: How do you keep up your pace? You have to be really self-motivated to do so much. You must have to go out when you don't feel like it in weather like this, or just after a long day, or I can imagine just not feeling like it for no reason.

A: Yeah, I was like that last night. I almost didn't go out. I was watching terrible TV and I made myself get off the couch and I went to two mics and worked on some new stuff and saw a bunch of my friends and it was definitely the right thing to do.

Q: How do you keep your energy levels up mentally and physically?

A: Oh, I have lapses. I definitely do. I just catch myself. Especially in the winter, you know how that is. It's easy to sink down into your couch and plow through eight episodes of House of Cards on Netflix or something a lot worse.

I go through periods where sometimes I'm not as motivated, but I know all the symptoms and signs and I try to catch myself in it and say, "Hey, get off the couch. Let's go. There's a bus leaving in ten minutes. Let's go do a mic." That's what I try to tell myself. It doesn't work all the time, but you know, I'm trying.

Q: What have been your favorite and least favorite comedy experiences?

A: I've done some one-nighter shows out in the middle of nowhere where you make specific references and they look at you like you're speaking Japanese and you go, "Oh boy, I've got thirty-five more minutes of this. Well, okay, I really hope the check doesn't bounce."

I did a show like that the other night. Some dude who was obviously really drunk, he still had his sunglasses on top of his head at 10:30 p.m., was yelling at me and I was like, "Oh, Jesus Christ." Those nights are the opposite of why I got into this. Unfortunately, those shows are the ones that pay.

My favorite shows are the ones in the city that don't pay. I hang out and see my friends and I see them do exactly what they want to do and they don't have to compromise in any way and people get it. My favorite shows are the ones that just keep getting better each comic as they go up and the audience gets a little taste of "Oh, this is what it's going to be like." And then the comics start to understand, "Oh wow, these guys are into this and they understand us and I can do whatever I want up there." Those are my favorite shows and they happen at many places in the city.

Q: What do you do when you get guys like the sunglasses guy?

A: The worst thing to do is to get really angry because that escalates it and distracts from what people came to see. You try to squash the whole thing and keep going. The best thing to do is let the audience turn against them. You have a whole room full of people that are mad that they're interrupting the show. Fortunately, it doesn't happen that much.

Q: Congratulations on "Don't Spit the Water." You were the only comedian who got your contestant [Jim Gaffigan] to spit right away.

A: (Sigh) Yeah. But Jim Gaffigan literally got there right before that segment and had no idea what was going on. I'd never done that character before. He's an amalgam of the rock and roll chefs like Guy Fieri and I wanted to try it out. I was going to open mic it right there on TV. [Gaffigan] knew just that the game was called "Don't Spit the Water" so he just spit. He apologized to me after, like I'm sorry you didn't get to do your bit, I didn't know what was going on … I just thought I wanted to do something funny, so I spit. I was like okay, alright then. You wanted to do something funny on TV. You with your six comedy specials, but that's fine. I'm not mad that he spit on my foot. I'm over it now.

Q: I read that you were in Bozo's dressing room. What did it look like?

A: That was really odd. There was a strange black and white picture of him getting dressed. It was obviously taken in the room we were in and it was hanging on the wall. We were wondering, maybe he lived in there. How sad that would be. And there were two large mysterious old-timey travel trunks on top of red, yellow and blue lockers.

Q: Do you know what was in them?

A: No, I don't. We were joking that it might have been Bozo. There was stencil all over them that said, "Do not open, do not touch", which made the temptation pretty great. Thankfully, it was very early in the morning and we had to get dressed. But we did get to go into the old Bozo studio. The Bozo logo is still on the wall for posterity, but I'm sad to report that the Lotto drawings are shot there now.

Q: Oh no, they are?

A: Yeah. Sorry to crush part of your childhood. They shoot the Lotto drawings in there now. How the mighty have fallen.

Q: I guess that's the adult version of the Grand Prize Game.

A: But you don't have to spend money that you otherwise would have spent on food when you played the Bozo bucket.

Q: So true! Of the characters you've done, is there one you identify with the most?

A: I typically do characters who have something of me in there. But the more comedic characters I do I hopefully don't want to identify with that much. People know that I've done this D.K. Ediger character for a while. Sometimes I'm out with somebody and I'll tell them to be careful for whatever reason, like if they dart into the street crossing Western Avenue. And they'll say, "Okay, D.K. Ediger." And I'll say, "No, no, that's a goofy character that I do. He has an easel and dumb drawings. But this is me talking as a guy who doesn't want to see you get squashed like an idiot."

Q: What are the secrets to creating a believable character?

A: When I do characters like D.K. Ediger, I start by writing down phrases that I like. I start thinking of a mode of speech, if you can just be consistent with that. I think about mannerisms. It really takes form when you put on the clothes. There's the ceremonial trip to the thrift store to buy ridiculous items. That's always fun.

Then I try the clothes on and start walking around my apartment. For this character that I'm doing now, -- he's called Flobby Ray, he's the Guy Fieri character -- I have a ridiculous goatee I found and that's just pasted on. I'll walk around and start working on the voice and everything like that. Ideally, my girlfriend will be gone. And it hopefully times out where she gets home from work and I can just jump around the corner dressed like an idiot. The sad thing is she doesn't even get scared or excited anymore. She's like, "Oh, you're doing this again. Alright. I'm going outside to sit on the porch and have a beer."

Q: For the audience it's kind of magical to see this character materialize on stage, totally believable. It's fun to hear the "behind the scenes."

A: Yeah, that's what you don't want the audience thinking about. You want them to buy into it. Everybody knows you're doing a wacky character, but at the same time you have to sell it. You can't do the obnoxious break-the-fourth-wall thing, ha ha ha, this is funny, wink wink. You have to be committed. The best characters are the guys who are super serious and believe every word they say. Like the funniest people are people with no self-awareness. They think that everything they are doing is right and righteous and they don't realize how ridiculous they look.

Q: Is D.K. Ediger coming to Wilmette on March 9th?

A: No, I'm going to leave him back at the apartment in the old-character utility closet. It's just going to be me this time. I've been writing a lot of new stuff and I want to do it for the folks in Wilmette.

Q: What are some of the new topics and material you're writing?

A: I'm writing about what I'm going through right now, like fighting through a winter depression. I've got a whole new depression chunk. Hurray! I was working on a bit last night about how weird going to auditions is, especially auditioning with kids and pretending to be their parents and about parents who take their kids to these things. It's very odd to me. Also talking about crock pot cooking because that's what I'm into now. It spans many hours and it's teaching me patience.

Q: What is it like when you think of something and you know it's going to evolve into a bit?

A: It starts with something small. It starts with a phrase that occurs to me or a weird thing I see, a strange behavior that I witness. I'm going to shows, so I'm by myself a lot. I start thinking because I don't have anybody to go, "Hey, would you look at that?!" or distract me from it, so I kind of obsess over it. That's how these things start and then you start scribbling in your notebook. Then you try it onstage and see if this was just some bizarre thought that should just live in your head and stay there or maybe be extricated from your head and something that people can connect with. The only way to know is to try it.

Q: What is an example?

A: I just saw this guy on the bus. It was about a twenty minute bus ride and he kept trying to load the same "YouTube" clip. He kept hitting the screen over and over again and he was using more force with his thumbs as he went along as if he hit it harder, somehow the internet would respond.

It was kind of a sad commentary. I do this kind of thing, too, but I was like, "Maybe you should just put that thing down. It's not going to work." The joke that I tell was that I was inspired because I wish I wanted anything as much as that guy didn't want to be alone with his own thoughts. The thing that struck me about that and the reason I wrote it down is I see my own behavior in it. Checking Facebook a gazillion times a day. Maybe I should just walk away.

Q: I recently read a quote, "Whatever you're most passionate about when you're five is what you should do for the rest of your life." Were you passionate early on about comedy and theater?

A: I did a little bit of acting in school. I remember being cast in sixth and seventh grade. I didn't get cast in my eighth grade year and was passed over for a guy who could barely make sentences and I was so mad. It was my first bitter show biz experience. I did a little bit in high school and I couldn't really get along with the drama kids. There was way too much screaming and hugging for me and I rolled my eyes the whole time.

But I was into doing goofy voices when I was really little. I have two little sisters and I remember staying at my grandma's house with them. She had a box of dress-up clothes and I would let them dress me up to the horror of my grandma that I was dressed in her old clothes.

Q: So did you start creating characters early on?

A: I always liked messing with voices and stuff like that.

Q: What inspired you or did it just come naturally?

A: I was just a naturally weird kid like I'm a naturally weird adult.



* Don't Spit the Water is Chicago's crazy live game show where contestants hold water in their cheeks and comedians try to make them laugh so hard they lose it, literally. Jim Gaffigan appeared as a contestant.

Comedy At The Mette is at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 9th at the Wilmette Theatre, 1122 Central Ave. Tickets are $12. The show features Joe McAdam and is hosted by Ever Mainard. This is a 21 and over event. For more information or for tickets, call 847-251-7424 or visit http://www.wilmettetheatre.com/events/.