Comedian Mike Malone graduates to headliner

By John Benson

Comedian Mike Malone admits in some ways he’s been in the minor leagues of stand-up comedy for the better part of the past decade.

Straight out of high school, the Marion, Ohio, native (“It’s hilarious, most people have like a president or someone from their hometown, and we have a prison”) moved to Columbus and started hitting local comedy clubs.

What sounds like a perfect excuse to spend his late teens and early 20s acting like a college student in the shadow of Ohio State University without the homework and 8 a.m. math classes actually turned out to be the opposite for Malone. In fact, he ended up getting his own education in comedy.

“You know, I didn’t get to do a lot of partying then,” Malone said. “After doing comedy for like two years, I got picked up by this improv group (The Boss Players), who were touring veteran headliners of 15 years. So we were headlining Funny Bones and Improvs all over the country. It was like summer camp. It was straight to the big leagues there, and I was the rookie on the team.

“It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot with those guys, and we toured for a couple of years. By the time I was done touring with them, I had enough to go out on my own and do stand-up, and now here I am.”

So far so good for Malone, who earlier this year released his second comedy album, “Random Thoughts.” Actually, Malone said last week in Columbus he recorded a follow-up comedy project for future release.

“I was booked solid for March, so I took my camera crew with me, went to all of these clubs and recorded a DVD that kind of shows a behind-the-scenes look of me trying new material in different clubs and trying different sets all over the country,” Malone said. “So it’s kind of like a different look.”

If you ever wondered what a comedy career on the rise looked like, Malone’s current run could be it. Not only did he recently notice that he’ll be performing in the final showcase at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal (a big deal in the comedy world), but he’s finally graduating from feature act (middle comedian) to headliner at comedy clubs all over the nation.

This includes an upcoming return to Youngstown. Though in the past he’s been the featured act, Malone makes his headliner debut Thursday through Saturday at The Funny Farm.

“When you’re a feature, you get a half-hour at most clubs, and it’s so time constraining,” Malone said. “I want to do so much more up there, and usually I get lost in talking to the crowd, and my time just slips away. So it’s a lot more refreshing not to have that barrier, and I can do 45 minutes to an hour and a half now; it’s a lot better.SDRq

He added, “As far as my show, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s something different. It’s not like a normal comedy show. I’m not just going to stand there behind a microphone and tell you set-up, punch, set-up, punch. It won’t be like that. It’s a lot of action, a lot of high energy and it’s crowd interaction. It’s something different.”