STAND-UP TUESDAYS: Mike Brody

Stand-Up Tuesdays is a weekly comedy spotlight written by the wonderfully talented Angie Frissore. Covering both known and unknown comics, Stand-up Tuesdays is your new source for all things funny.

This week, Angie puts a spotlight on Mike Brody. If you or your comedy troupe would like to be featured on Stand-Up Tuesdays, please email utgjames@gmail.com.

They say that nice guys always finish last, but that’s not always the case. Take Minnesota-based comedian Mike Brody, for instance, who after twelve years of paying his club-comic dues releases his first full-length CD, That’s Not What I Meant, today through Rooftop Comedy. The Iowa-born farmer’s son isn’t what you’d call edgy, per se, but his unassuming stage presence masks a sharply-witted storyteller that knows how to keep his audience entertained.  A self-proclaimed man-child, much of Brody’s material is derived from his own experiences – whether it’s life on the road as a comic, his marriage, or being kidnapped for five minutes as a child.

“1979, when I was a year and a half old, I got stolen for five minutes. I don’t want to say kidnapped, because that’s too dark,” Brody explains. “I was in a grocery store with my mom, this crazy guy took me…they found him in the parking lot – everything’s okay, everything’s fine. Pretty much.  It wasn’t my mom’s fault – she turned away just to grab some cheese or whatever, and she turned back to where I was supposed to be in the shopping cart. Somebody had swapped me with a frozen turkey.”

Brody didn’t grow up aspiring to be a comedian, though he does cite spending time in the eighties and nineties watching the increasing amount of stand-up specials on television as having an influence on him.

“I grew up watching MTV’s Half Hour Comedy Hour, Evening at the Improv, Comedy on the Road – I devoured all that stuff growing up. It never occurred to me it was something I could do,” Brody tells me.  “One day at the tail end of college, one of my coworkers went to an open mic in Iowa City, where I was living, and came back talking about how he killed. All of a sudden the sparks of jealousy just got me motivated – if he can do that, I can do it.”

In addition to performing at comedy clubs throughout the country, Brody has a unique notch on his comedy belt that’s more than a little mind-blowing. Brody happens to be the official event comedian for ScyFy’s Ghost Hunters – because, naturally, when you’re gearing up to hunt the undead, you’ll want to have a little levity on your side.

“A few years ago I wrote a joke about ghosts and I put it up on MySpace – if that gives you a timeframe – basically, Amy Bruni, who is on the show, saw it (at the time she wasn’t on Ghost Hunters, she was the producer for their radio show, “Beyond Reality”). She was organizing their conventions and she called me up and asked me if I wanted to perform comedy at their Ghost Hunter events that they do at different haunted places from the show. She asked me if I could do forty-five minutes on ghosts, and I said ‘Absolutely’.  It went from being my favorite show to now, I’m friends with all the people from Ghost Hunters,” Brody describes.

Brody’s comedy is a high-energy mix of mild self-deprecation and hilariously puerile views on the world around him, a combination that both entertains and endears an audience to him. I’ll admit, I may have a soft spot for a comedian who is want to use terms like ‘crotchety’ and ‘stick in my craw’, but Brody is an enjoyable comedian through and through.

“I’m 33 years old and I’m already crotchety,” Brody states. “I don’t like Facebook because they want to you like everything. I got asked to like ‘Jews’ the other day. You can’t say no. Here’s the problem – the Jews’ page was updating too much, like every twenty minutes – I couldn’t see what my real friends were posting. Do you know how awkward it is to hit a button that says hide Jews?”

Do yourself a favor and pick up Mike Brody’s That’s Not What I Meant today via Rooftop Comedy, and get some good, wholesome hilarity while the gettin’s good!

 

 

 

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