Name: Craig Ferguson Talks About on Getting Started In Comedy
Uploaded: 2025-05-16T17:00:38.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Craig Ferguson Talks About on Getting Started In Comedy' from Are You Garbage Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Craig Ferguson Talks About on Getting Started In Comedy' from Are You Garbage Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-16. Transcript available.

and then when did you start comedy you said you came here when you were 21 is
that did you go back
after that yeah i my visa ran out i didn't want to get into trouble with
immigration because i
thought if i ever really want to come here i don't want to fucking end up
getting in trouble so right
so i left before my visa ran out and but there used to be the first time i ever
appeared on a
stage i mean i started doing comedy back there later but first time i ever did
comedy was a punk
rock venue in london they were having a festival of scottish punk rock bands
and all these cockney
punks were there that's about 18 or 19 years old and and i was the drummer in
one of the bands and the
lead singer said we have to change equipment between the bands so you go out
and do be funny uh to these
cockney punks i'm like what the fuck are you talking about like i had no
background no stand-up comedy
didn't exist in britain and it was only potatoes that's all about it and and so
i went out on the
stage i wore a kilt because i thought that'd be funny and good and i mean i was
wearing a kilt and
and i tried to tell jokes and stuff they wouldn't shut up just a bunch of they're
not a very receptive
crown and then the girls there was girls at the front that were trying to look
up my kilt i was going
like that i was so scared my knees were knocking i was shaking and they started
to his knees are knocking
his knees are knocking and then the whole fucking venue those british get a
heckle all these cockney
punks are like his knees are knocking his knees are knocking his knees are
knocking and i had to go off
the stage crying but you know the weird thing and this is how you know you're a
fucking stand-up
because i came off and i went i gotta do that again i think i got him at the
end i think i think i had
them i was nearly there it was that knees knocking bit really worked huh i'm
gonna leave that man i'll
start with the knees knocking that was my problem and then when did you get
back over here and start
really pursuing stand or did you already have a good career over there and then
came here did you
come here and and pop no neither really i mean i had an okay career there i was
doing all right i
was getting like parts and shows and i was doing standards this is in scotland
this is in london
uh a little a little of both column a column b were you based out of scotland
though no i was in
scotland until i was about 24 25 okay and uh the girl that uh we got married
right we got divorced
i understand at 24 so i moved down to london when i was about 24. i still had i'm
still drinking a
lot okay and have you guys heard of drugs yeah all right so i'm a big fan i was
doing them welcome
to the show right so i was doing drugs as well so i was taking the drugs and
the drinking and so
my performance style was inconsistent
sometimes i was great i have that now yeah yeah yeah so i it kind of came and
went a little bit i was
doing okay and then what happened was i got sober in london when i was 29 okay
and and then i i was
kind of like i was keen to change things to but everyone i was still like the
drunk to everybody i
i couldn't like change the perception i got you and i and i always wanted to i
always wanted to be in
america anyway i always want to go to america and then i was doing the edinburgh
festival you know
that of course right so i was doing the edinburgh festival and a guy an
american guy called rick siegel who
was my manager who became my manager he saw me there and he was like you just
come and marry you've
cleaned up your active drop 25 pounds fuck it come over and and i'll see if i
can get you a gig and
i came over for two weeks in november 1994 and i'm still here whoa no damn yeah
where did you move
too when you came over you go to la or here los angeles yeah went to la yeah i
got a i got because
i would have come here right because this is where i i knew but i went out to
la and they offered me a
job my first job was doing a sitcom that lasted like uh 20 i only lasted 10.
yeah uh but they used to come
and go back oh my god the mid-season replace i mean yeah it was like they greenlight
two you get two
episodes yeah that's right the next thing wait so how long have you been doing
stand-ups when you
came over here uh well since i was i mean i'd been doing it in britain and
stuff it always 10 15 years
or so i had this i kind of missed this but i had this character i used to do
called bing hitler
right and i used to do this character i thought it'd be funny different time
man different time
you know it was kind of funny sure it was pretty funny like bing crosby and hitler
no i mean that
yes with the name thing but it was there was no real reference to it he was
actually just a scottish
guy that was just his name but there was nothing in it about nazis or or crooning
it was just it was
just a a kind of weird character okay and when i did that and that was pretty
successful that did well
all right um so i'd been doing that and that that was kind of going all the
time kind of came and went
i made a couple of albums with with that as well because we used to do comedy
albums yeah i know
comedy podcasts comedy albums and you could write 25 minutes every four years
and you know you'd be
fine and there you go yeah and then where did you land in la were you working
at the store where were
you no i didn't see when i got to la i stopped doing stand-up okay uh because i
i kind of didn't know
what to do and went out as an actor yeah and i got a job with i got a job with
like my third edition with
uh betty white and marie osmond on a show called maybe this time and i became
friend i became friends
with both of these women that's crazy they're both well betty's gone now but
they're both great
and betty you know who was on my late night show every week when i was there
doing it she and i stayed
friends right until she died and she was the she was unbelievably nice to me
when i like i turned up
and i had like no idea what i was doing and she would she was nice to me she
had great chops oh my
god this is multi-cam sitcom yeah old school stuff yeah so do you call back
home and and are you like
you know we're we're we're getting there we're making it yeah they're like oh
that's nice yeah they can't
really wrap their head around it yeah your brother's got a damaged testicle he's
going for an operation
like okay yeah fine goldie died yeah goldie goldie goldie too is doing okay
holy that's wild man
and what part of town are you in in new york well have you guys heard of the
upper east side yeah of
course it's the first place i lived when i moved up yeah oh really yeah 81st
and first i was pretty
close yeah yeah i don't think it's the same apartment of course 81st and first
is very close
to the comic strip yes the comic strip there used to be when i was here when i
was 21 and i was kind
of thinking about i'd done the cockney thing you remember the usually you're
knocking it so i thought
when i was here i thought i'd love to try stand-up comedy again see how it
worked and there used to be
a thing at the comic strip there was a guy who's uh died now but there's a guy
called lucian hole yeah
who's in charge of all that and and i uh there used to be a you would go up
there at 10 a.m on a monday
morning and get a there would be all these stand-up comedians waiting outside
uh these kids and you
would take a lottery ticket out of a basket and if your number was called they
would pick 10 people
every monday morning we've been in those lines right they still did it up until
like eight ten years ago
all right so you pull the ticket and and if you get called the following monday
you get a spot and it's
kind of like an open the mic spot and i uh i pulled the ticket i didn't get
called and i so i said to
the guy the barman who was running the guy who's just behind the bar he was
like i said what what do
i do with this then do i do i come back next week and try again he said where
are you from i said scotland
and he went oh i gotta see this all right so he put me in and i got a spot the
following week
and i did okay yeah i did okay i got a few laughs and so they asked me back the
following week to do
it again now this time i'm starting to get worried because i can't earn any
money because i don't have
that visa so uh i go back the next week and um and it was okay everything
worked out fine because i was
and they said yeah this guy's a flash in the pan at best yeah
you