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Comedian Henry Cho makes one thing clear right up front when he takes the stage: In his east Tennessee drawl, he announces that he is from the south, hence the accent, and he is Korean.
“I’m south Korean,” he quips.
This brings a laugh plus immediately answers questions about his accent and his appearance, he said.
Cho, a professional comedian for more than 30 years, prides himself on having a clean act although his humor is for adults. He will be performing in San Ramon this week and is happy to be returning to the Bay Area.
“The Bay Area treated me better than any other part of the country when I performed there in the early to mid-’90s. I sold out every show way in advance,” he said. “Back then, Asian Americans weren’t going to see comedy but they’d come to see me. That put me over the top in the Bay Area.”
“We almost moved to the Bay Area, we liked the East Bay for raising a family,” he added. “But my being a southern boy, and my wife is from Alabama — the south had a strong pull.”
They have two boys and a girl, ages 16, 14 and 11.
“This year I updated a big hunk of my act since my son’s been driving,” he said.
In comedy clubs, the audience is 21 and older so Cho said he performs basically the same set. Otherwise, he adapts his material as he assesses the audience.
“I know my first minute, and then I’m feeling the crowd out,” Cho explained. “Audiences tend to be 65% women, but if I come to find out it’s reversed then I change gears a little bit. If there are more single people I don’t talk too much about marriage and kids. Even if it is funny, you will lose them eventually.”
He prefers theaters to comedy clubs.
“Theaters are the best because people aren’t distracted by their chicken wings and who took the last french fry,” he said. “They are tuned in, 100% focused.”
“When you hear a band you can zone out, but with a comedian you have to pay attention,” he explained.
Cho recalled that he was on his fifth major at the University of Tennessee when, on a whim and encouraged by his buddies, he entered a comedy competition at a local club.
“This guy had 12 comedy clubs throughout the south,” Cho remembered. “I walked off the stage and he hired me. I entered the competition on Monday, I started working on Wednesday, and I dropped out of college on Friday. That was over 30 years ago, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Cho is a veteran of “The Tonight Show,” “The Late, Late Show” and many other talk shows, and there are some very funny clips on YouTube to prove it. He has a one-hour special on Comedy Central, can be heard on Sirrus/XM and Blue Collar Radio, and has performed in seven movies.
He crisscrosses the country performing his stand-up comedy, including Las Vegas, and this year his tour includes the Dougherty Valley Performing Arts Center in San Ramon.
“I got tons of communications via social media saying, ‘When are you coming back to the Bay Area?'” he said. “My main fan base has grown up with me.”
Cho’s returning fans insist he include his old tried and true jokes when he is onstage.
“It’s amazing that people start yelling out bits they want to hear. It’s flattering and humbling,” he said, adding with a laugh, “Sometimes I forget and they have to help me.”
“Twenty-five percent of my audience are young hipsters,” he noted, “but the main audience is 30-50, and because I am clean I bring in senior citizens. I’m old-school.”
“You’ve got to be a little more clever to do an hour that is clean,” he said, and he also hires clean comedians to open the act for him.
But, he emphasized, his humor is for adults: “My humor is not difficult, but it’s not simple either.”
Laugh it up
What: Henry Cho: The Funny but Clean Comedy Tour
When: 8 p.m., Friday, Feb. 24
Where: Dougherty Valley Performing Arts Center
Tickets: $16-$41. Call 973-3343, visit www.sanramon.ca.gov/parks/theater; or go to box office at 10550 Albion Road in San Ramon.