Name: Tony Hinchcliffe | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #411
Uploaded: 2022-10-04T15:00:33.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tony Hinchcliffe | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #411' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-10-04. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tony Hinchcliffe | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #411' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-10-04. Transcript available.

Tony Hinchcliffe | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #411

today's guest uh is visiting from austin texas he was born in ohio over there
in youngstown youngstown
uh he is the uh the creator of the kill tony show it's one of the most unique
live shows i've ever been affiliated with i mean it is the dang it's the cirque
de soleil of just damn
just bullshit it's amazing um you're gonna learn all about that you're gonna
learn about him it's his
first time here uh on the podcast and i'm grateful for his time comedian tony
henchcliffe
i'll sit and tell you
and you have because you're a real posture bear baby i think you've got that
straight back oh you are the shortest distance between two points i mean you
are
you are as the crow flies man you've always been strong in stature like one
hand behind my back
when i'm performing i like it like regal yeah where do you think that comes
from do you because you
kind of have that that regality kind of i'm sitting here with tony henchcliffe
for those of you guys who
who uh aren't familiar tony is a comedian and a friend of mine and um we're
gonna get into his
life a little bit uh thanks for coming on man of course yeah it's cool brother
yeah yeah where does
that come from you think because you do have a very i don't want to say it's
almost a brit it's not
is it british what is it kind of i'm not sure what i'm not sure where exactly
it comes from but when
it comes to stand-up comedy i my friends back when i graduated from high school
were obsessed with
dane cook and i and i was i walked in one day and they're dying of laughter
when he's moving around
it was the vicious circle and he's walking and swinging his arms and i remember
thinking to myself
i want to do that but i want to do it without any of that movement i want it to
be just the words
i want to i want to figure out a way and then sure enough when i got to the
comedy store and actually
saw real stand-ups like the guys that sometimes it was the guys that didn't
even take the mic out of
the mic stand that blew my mind the most wow dice would just walk up to it that
even i don't do that
like it's like no mic in the mic stand or i mean leave it in there and he
leaves it in there
the whole time yeah oh wow yeah yeah because you kind of you are that snipe you
really are a sniper
of humor you know it's like where can you it's almost like you have a nail gun
yeah and with
these jokes in it i feel like um where did you start out at because i don't
even know that man yeah
i started at the comedy store in the original room yeah i went there to sign up
fucking shia labeuf's dad as crazy as this world is i made friends with shia
labeuf's dad at a
starbucks in burbank and i was procrastinating starting stand-up comedy at the
time and at the time
right then 2007 shia had just signed this crazy steven spielberg deal and and
he looked for like five
pictures or something it was pre we didn't even know it was gonna be transformers
and all these other
things like it was still just the infancy of shia labeuf so there was this like
buzz around the
coffee shop i was out playing poker with these armenian guys and they're like
you know who that
guy is over there that is shia labeuf's dad he's this wizard looking character
like so i went and made
friends with him and i told him he goes what's your plan i go i want to be a
stand-up comedian
i think i'm gonna go up to this haha or this uh chuckle hut whatever it was in
north hollywood at
the time and he goes you shouldn't do that you should start at the comedy store
they let them see
you start and sink or swim and because it's gonna you're gonna the pressure is
gonna get to you when
you get there anyway when you think you're ready for there you're not gonna be
ready for there too
so you might as well not be ready for there now and it was like great advice it
really was wow well
i think for maybe for yeah i think for some people that advice it's like you
want to get good before
you go there right but he was saying just stand like just in the firing line
and it worked out man
i signed up for that thing and i watched i got like number nine out of 15 and i
watched the first
eight and it was the first eight people i'd ever seen do stand-up and they were
doing three minutes
and they're just like really bombing i'm like i think i got this and so for the
and for people
who don't know i i remember going to that too i would go and sign up so you
would go was it monday
night sundays and mondays you'd have to be there by six o'clock and you'd sign
and put your name in
like a bowl or something yeah you sign this one big piece of paper and then it
goes back to the
employees who are literally like all right that looks like a new name that
looks like a new name that
looks like a new name and then like after that they sort of just put people
that they know and like
sort of earned it like they've been doing good lately give him number 15. right
there's a little
bit of mafia back there like making some choices totally so you had the eight
people that went up and
you were like so damn so you always kind of have had that confidence i mean you
have this crazy
confidence where it's like how did this guy who's probably not the largest in
stature right get so
much dense confidence in him yeah you know it's like plutonium or something i
feel like isn't that
a real thick metal i think yeah something like that i'm not sure you know i
think it's a combination
of uh having stubborn italian parents and being from a weird tough crazy
neighborhood getting into a lot
of fights with bigger kids and having to scrap and survive back in the day and
you know so i'm
just happy to be at the dance yeah you know when i got to the comedy store i'm
like i'm happy to be in
la i'm already winning so like no matter how this goes it's going to be great
plus i'm going to get
better you know what i mean like this is not going to be this bad again yeah
yeah yeah so you get up
and you're ninth in the line yeah and and it went well and i prepared for
months and i blanked out i
forgot everything as soon as i got up there but i literally said you know as
hacky and as cheesy as
it is looking back at it but i literally go wow um i've never done this before
i prepared for months
every day i wrote and i cannot for the life of me remember one single thing
that i wanted to say right
now and those first date people were all doing jokey jokes that like you know
the comedians are in the
back like oh you know but when i said that there was this pop in the room
people like looked up because
it's like wait this guy's like being honest right now and it's the first time
they had seen that you
know 30 minutes into that show that night and that's all it was three minutes
of me basically
going i don't know yep yep still can't remember can't believe it wasn't
expecting this to happen
like just non-stop and i'm still trying to think of one thing and like what's
funny is that one went
really well and then the ones after that for like months were the bad ones
really when i remembered
my jokes was the bad ones which is pretty foreshadowing you know for people
that know
my comedy style because i like going off script and you know what i mean like i
like playing and being
in the moment trusting that you know it's sort of like jumping out of a plane
without a parachute
like i like i like i like that dangerous part you know where it's like maybe i'll
say something
that i thought of on the drive to the club that night that's not finished and
it's just a premise
and you have like a race to finish the joke you know yeah maybe i'll think
about it got a couple
seconds left almost to the end of the sentence yeah it's almost like dynamite
like you like to light it
before you even know what the ingredients in it are i like to flip it around in
my hands a couple times
before throwing it catch it behind my back once and then see what happens so
that was what 15 years ago
almost 16 yeah may 2007 yeah fun how about you you started in i started at a
comedy i did a comedy
class actually called judy gold comedy class okay and um ben glebe was in it
wow this man that called
himself chicken man was in it and he would just yeah he would literally get up
there and just yell
chicken man chicken man whoa what happened to him i don't i honestly i think he
got involved in a fast
food business somehow and then yeah it's perfect uh because i remember him i
saw him years later on
the street he was talking about fries something about fry cooking or something
like a new oil i guess that's
helping those people you know do better or whatever but um yeah i remember that
and so at the end of
that class you got to get up for three minutes and that was like oh wow and you
got to form at the
improv and you got a tape of it so it was like man i gotta so when you leave
there with a tape and you
were on stage you feel totally like you're a comedian you know um but i didn't
really get going until
i think i probably went over to the comedy store and signed up and tommy was
over there and uh yeah
and it was just that's really for me i think when you really start to feel like
okay i'm dropped in
on this you know there is something about the comedy store yeah or there or
there certainly used to be
man it's a cool building yeah it's intimidating all those signatures so like
immediately people are like
whose names are on this wall how do i get my name on the wall it looks cool oh
there's jim carrey in
the same font as this newer that's a younger guy i just saw him he just walked
by yeah it's like
how do i get my name in that right it's like tricky it's like screaming from
blocks away to
like look at it and take it in it's powerful plus it's black and white and red
yeah it has a very dark
you can feel a bit of history and it feels kind of sorted yeah uh you know you
can feel people's energy
when they walk through the hall like what's going on with them even if they don't
say anything you
can feel the nervousness of some people you keep running into people you're not
even sure if you
know them or met them before um but yeah when you get up on the stage it's just
like you have to do it
uh so fast forward though now you live in austin now so you made that move to
austin yeah and uh
it's interesting we're talking about the first time on stage because one of the
things that like
i know you've done kill tony for a long time how many shows have you guys done
now over i think over
600 we're about to have our 10-year anniversary in june and for people that don't
know kill tony is
well you tell them what it is you tell them you know well it's like uh it's
like a crazy comedy
show where comedians watch newer or older comedians do one minute and they sign
up for the chance to
get one minute uninterrupted in front of a bunch of fans on the internet and
then i interview them
afterwards and my guest comedians dose in jokes and you know contribute and we
find out more about the
person so not only if i pull their name out of a bunch of people sign up names
go in a bucket i pull their
name out they get a minute and then i interview them afterwards so not only do
they win like a
minute of uninterrupted stand-up but then all of a sudden they they're on a
podcast for like eight
more minutes yeah where i interview them and grill them about their life and
make jokes about their
set and their life and ask them questions and try to figure out what's
different about them i'm sort
of like pulling from like you know i was raised on like howard stern old school
interviews and like
he would always ask the right questions at the right time and like he'd get
more information
of out of these people and that's sort of what i'm trying to squeeze out so
sometimes i'll just hit
them with what's the weirdest thing in your refrigerator or what's your biggest
fear or what's
your family you're you raised by a single mom and like i've asked so many of
these questions that i've
built sort of a palette kind of yeah to where i know where things are going and
i can already tell
that p