By Amy Serna It might seem hard to imagine making a successful career with puppets, but that is exactly what stand-up comedian and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham has accomplished. His fame, however, wasn’t handed to him from the get-go. Dunham has been working with dummies ever since he was a kid, but now the puppets he brought to life have quickly become classic comic icons. Forbes magazine didn’t name Dunham the highest-paid comedian (along with popular comics Chelsea Handler and Dane Cook) in the United States for nothing. In the past year, the puppeteer earned up to $22.5 million, and Pollstar named him the top touring comedian for the second year in a row.  Dunham’s “Very Special Chris

Ralphie May had a message to deliver Thursday at the Crest Theater for those who are haters, lovers, racists, gay or homophobes. Embrace it. Own it. After an entertaining 20-minute warm-up by Tennessee comedian Billy Wayne Davis, May strode onstage to Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire." That was the beginning of a two-hour stream of consciousness that could have offended just about anyone. No problem; May owned it. He peppered his show with references to Sacramento, from the expected Schwarzenegger imitation, "Welcome to Kal E Fonya," to talking about getting "stoned as a biblical whore" in Capitol Park and having a squirrel come up and ask for a hit. "The K Street bums all look li

A capacity crowd filled the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium with screams Thursday night as the lights went down on the Sacramento leg of Conan O’Brien’s Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour. For more than two hours, Team Coco kept the crowd thoroughly entertained and gave the impression that Sacramento was the only stop on its tour, not one of 30. In the band's opener, Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up," three of the musicians, including trombone player Richie "La Bamba" Rosenberg, marched into the audience as they played, bringing the crowd to a frenzy. A short movie clip showed O'Brien fat and depressed over the very public end of his late-night talk show. Then, members of

A SacramentoComedy.Com Interview From his start telling jokes at family Passover dinners at age 10, to catching hell for doing impressions of his high school coach, Kevin Pollak was meant to perform. Comedy "I was born in San Francisco but moved to San Jose when I was young. When I began performing, it was in venues that were designed for music. There were no comedy clubs then in San Jose. I would go on between the bands breaks when nobody really wanted to listen. When I moved to San Francisco, I was amazed that people loved going to see comedy and would actually pay to see it!" Entering the San Francisco comedy scene in the late '70's, Pollak was the youngest performer in the San Fran

Will Durst is very smart and very, very funny. The five-time Emmy nominee is bringing his one-man show, "Lieutenant Governor of the State of Confusion" to Sacramento's Crest Theatre on May 8. Durst, one of the country's best-known political humorists, has been compared to Will Rogers, Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory. Described as a "bipartisan basher," Durst seems to leave no stone unturned in exploring the political landscape for nuggets of humor, often of the "I can't believe they did that" variety. "Sacramento is a 'company town' and I speak of 'company' business," he said.  Though Durst lives in one of the state's most liberal cities, San Francisco, he doesn't limit his material to stat

A SacramentoComedy.Com Interview Jennifer Coolidge is beautiful. Whether you wish she was your best friend's mother, your manicurist/advocate, your messed-up friend or just your date for the evening depends not only your age, but what movie or TV show you saw her in last. Coolidge, who has been a leading character actress for more than 20, years is tackling a new segment of her creativity – that of a stand-up comedian. We met in the green room at Tommy T's Comedy Club in Rancho Cordova before her final show for the weekend. Looking just like I and a million other boys and men imagined her a decade ago when she played Stifler's mom in the ‘American Pie’ movies, Coolidge is a striking bea

"Does sexuality matter in the comedy business?" I asked Suzanne Westenhoefer, who has been credited as the first lesbian comic to come "out" in mainstream comedy. "I started my career as a lesbian before I was a comic," she said, "and started as an activist before I was a lesbian. I was one of those people in high school who would get into arguments with the sociology teacher and stand up for the 'misfits,' of which I was one of." Making a stand was what seemed to drive her forward. Westenhoefer did not always identify as a lesbian, however. Early on she felt that she was out of the mainstream but it didn't occur to her that she was gay until she was 19. "It was such a shock when it occu

A SacramentoComedy.Com Interview From homeless to headliner, Dat Phan knows what it means to work hard to achieve your goals. His story is another "American dream" come true for someone willing to put it all out there. Phan, the youngest of 10 kids, started in Saigon, Vietnam, and landed in the ghettos of San Diego with his mother. There were times when they slept on bus benches. "I credit my mom for keeping me out of gangs as a child,” Phan said. “My babysitter was Cox Cable, and it kept me off the streets." It was during this period that he was inspired by the celebrities he watched on TV. "It was during the time that Michael Jackson was still black and awesome!" This all was happe

Paula Poundstone is funny, smart, quick and has a profound friendliness about her. A steady flow of excited audience members streamed through the doors of the beautiful Crest Theater Saturday night to see Poundstone perform, filling the theater to it's maximum capacity. All walks of life and lifestyles seemed to be well-represented, making it clear that she has a very broad appeal. It became apparent just how much anticipation the audience had for this night when General Manager Sid Garcia-Heberger came onstage and asked that all cell phones be turned off for the performance and the crowd applauded. How could Poundstone follow that? Simple. She just jumped right in. "So, were you all cl

  A Sacramento Comedy.Com Interview Getting to the essence of veteran comedian Doug Stanhope is both easy and difficult at the same time. He's so simple, yet so complex. Because of that, he is also completely controversial. Actually, to say that Stanhope is "controversial " is a vast understatement. Many people only know Stanhope through his short-lived hosting of "The Man Show" with Joe Rogan and his participation in the late-night, titillating "Girls Gone Wild" infomercials, which he said was only for the money. Stanhope's true fans know him as an outspoken, uncensored, honest and libertarian comic who looks at the world and questions aloud how we have turned a blind eye to how we ar

A Sacramento Comedy.Com Interview Steven Bloom, aka, The Comedy Guy,  spoke with Paula by phone recently at her home in Santa Monica. Traveling almost every week of the year, the amazing part is that she was at home. When asked if Poundstone enjoyed all of the extensive travel, she just replied that because she spends so little time at each location, that she calls herself, "a lazy traveler," and that she mostly works or sleeps in the hotel room. In the old days when she would perform at comedy clubs and be there four of five nights, Poundstone used to go exploring. She even reminisced about the Sacramento Railroad Museum when she performed at the historic Laughs Unlimited in Old Sac. O

Whenever I hear descriptive terms like "good clean fun" or "fun for the entire family", and the word "Disneyland" isn't included in the sentence, in my mind I think "boring!" Put the words "comedy" and "competition" in the same sentence and I just think of a "Yo Mamma so fat..." argument on the asphalt. But not anymore! Welcome to Sacramento Comedy Sportz, a very nice and intimate venue tucked away in an industrial area behind Arby's on Arden one driveway east of Howe. The sign, like the venue is small and tucked away, so if you weren't looking for it, you may only come across it when looking for carpet next door. So, what makes this comedy venue so different? It's not comedy about sport

Michael McDonald is a very funny man. And a great storyteller.Just ask the 1200+ people who came out to see him Thursday night at the Sacramento State UNIQUE event in the Grand Ballroom. It was standing room only! Many people remember McDonald's signature character "Stuart," a strange little boy with the body of a full-grown man from his many years on "MADtv." Now McDonald is simply... well, Michael McDonald, a storyteller extraordinaire. Right from the beginning, when "Last Comic Standing" alumni Jason Downs opened the show, everyone was ready to laugh. Downs, a San Francisco comic, delivered jokes about Sarah Silverman, a bong trade show in Las Vegas and masturbating in front of a lapt

This week's "Ask The Comedy Guy" question is: "How does a comedian handle a heckler from the audience?" Thank you for that question! As most of you know, The Comedy Guy is one of the most easy going people in Sacramento. But nothing gets my ire up like this behavior at a live comedy performance. So, if you read my angry hit piece; "The Things That I Hate" on the SacramentoComedy.Com website, then you know this is one of my personal vexations. I came to see the professional comedian, not you, the drunk audience member wanting to be part of the act. Laugh, respond only when spoken to and keep your comments quietly to yourself. Unless you have a good 15 minutes of solid, well rehearsed, st

  Did you realize that Sacramento is a comedy Mecca? Oh, trust me, you fortunate ones, it is. Within a microphone's throw of downtown Sacramento, you can find three major comedy clubs, two improv shows, a few smaller weekday venues and, for the aspiring comic or those of you wondering if you have the chops, some open mics and showcases to satisfy your comedy appetite. Because we report on the Sacramento comedy scene each and every day, we are constantly immersed and amazed at how much quality comedy is made available to you. In the last 60 days alone, Jerry Seinfeld, DL Hughley, Tim Meadows, Josh Blue, Gallagher and Ralphie May Jo Koy, Darren Carter and so many more headlined Sacrame