Funnyman Lavell Crawford Making It Big

By John Kuebler

On an open mic night in a smoky little club in St. Louis called The Funnybone, a young local named Lavell Crawford took the stage for the first time. After an introductory spattering of applause, the room fell quiet.

“I told myself if I got just one laugh I’d make it a career,” Crawford chuckled in recollection.

Eighteen years and more than a few laughs later, Crawford is one of the hottest comedians around and on his way to the Comedy Works in Denver this month. He’s a star in the NBC reality show Last Comic Standing, modeled after Survivor, where comedians battle for immunity and eliminate one another in head-to-head standup competitions. (As of press time, he made it to the top five, and the show had about three episodes left.) According to fellow competitor Jon Reep, Crawford is the comedian they’re all afraid of.

A big man with bright bulging eyes, Crawford can certainly look intimidating. But his rollicking, sidesplitting, storyteller style, reminiscent of Richard Pryor, has audiences and fellow comedians taking notice.

“You got to talk about who you are and where you come from,” Crawford said. “For me that’s being a big guy, raised by a single mother in urban surroundings. I throw church aspects in there too. My first bit was about my mom’s car catching on fire with Christmas presents in the trunk. I said something like: Who cares about the car?”

Crawford’s honesty and authenticity have made him a favorite across the nation.

“I love what I do,” he said. “I write funny stuff that’s true to life. People from all different backgrounds can get it. I don’t try to highbrow my audience. I hate it when comedians talk above you. If you that damn smart, shouldn’t you be a scientist? Shoot. I’m a comedian. I’m just tryin’ to get a laugh.”

“A comic does one liners,” Crawford explained, “but a comedian can tell a story. I believe you should always take a joke to the next level.”

One of his long and hilarious montages, where he shares airline experiences such as blocking the aisle from his window seat and having to pee from outside the bathroom door, begins, “Every time I’m on a plane I can hear people prayin’ as I walk down the aisle: ‘Please God, don’t let his fat ass sit with me.’”

Many of his stories are about his trials as a big man.

“My favorite kind of humor is self deprecating,” Crawford said, “like Rodney Dangerfield and Richard Pryor. Everybody will laugh at your pain.”

Crawford’s pain includes his recent onset of diabetes.

“When I found out I had diabetes, I cried for two months,” he said. “I mean, man, I really like to eat. I have to make jokes just to get through it.”

“Now I gotta eat (stuff) I don’t wanna eat. I gotta eat salad. I look like a fat-ass rabbit tryin’ to eat a salad. Every time I order a Diet Coke, people bust out laughin’: ‘Who dat fo’?’” he joked.

By poking fun at his own tribulations, Crawford puts people at ease.

“If you can make yourself vulnerable, audiences will love you for it,” he said. “Besides, I love myself too much to let someone else pick on me. I might get in a fight. But if you beat them to it, you take away their power.”

Before Last Comic Standing, he appeared on The Jamie Foxx Show, Steve Harvey’s Big Time, BET’s Comic View, Showtime at the Apollo, and Russell Simmons Presents Def Comedy Jam. He has done a slew of independent films and acted in the stage plays Men Cry in the Dark and Friends and Lovers.

Still, Crawford said, “Doing standup in the clubs will always be my number one love.”

Crawford will make his long overdue Denver club debut at Comedy Works on Sept. 7.

“We are very excited that he is coming,” said Comedy Works marketing director Susan Collyar. “We are anticipating that by the time he arrives in Denver he could very well be a household name.”

That’s quite a climb for a St. Louis boy who was just looking for one laugh.

Editor’s Note: Check out Lavell Crawford at Comedy Works, 1226 15th St., Sept. 7-9. For information, call 303-595-3637 or visit www.comedyworks.com.

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