Comedian Chili Challis kicks off opening

Photo

By John Benson

entertainment@vindy.com

It’s been a few years since comedian Chili Challis has made Youngstown-area audiences laugh. Now that The Funny Farm is reopening, the Cincinnati native and Michigan resident returns for shows Friday and Saturday at the newly opened comedy venue located just across the state line at the Radisson Hotel in West Middlesex, Pa.

“How can you forget a name like The Vindicator,” said Challis, calling from his home just outside of Detroit. “It sounds like something that should be with WWE. I’m kind of excited about that. Anytime new clubs are opening these days, you have to get excited. I’m totally behind it.”

Challis, who started doing stand-up comedy when his fifth-grade teacher allowed him to entertain his classmates, is in his 30th year as a professional comic. In addition to working the club circuit, the funnyman enjoyed a stint as staff writer on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” Considering he still remains close to Leno, working as a consultant for the show, Challis had a front-row seat for last year’s NBC debacle involving Leno and Conan O’Brien.

“I love Conan to death, and I have friends who are on that staff, but they shouldn’t have messed with Jay,” Challis said. “Jay was No. 1, and he was doing everything the network wanted to do. They wanted to hold on to Conan, and Jay was nice enough to go, ‘OK, I’ll step away.’ But it was the network who went to Jay and said, ‘We want to keep you; let’s put you on earlier.’ It wasn’t Jay begging the network.

“You know how network television weasels are. They worry about their job, and they thought maybe Conan couldn’t cut it. Maybe he is too strange, and we’re going to lose our valuable property in Jay Leno. So they put him in front of Conan and messed it up for everybody. It’s the first time in history that somebody had a No. 1 show in their slot and the network came to him and asked him to step down. Right there is a symbol that it’s wrong. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”

As for Challis, his career wasn’t broke, but over the past few years he’s reinvented himself by touring the country as both a stand-up comedian and a teacher of comedy. His students range from stand-up wannabes to the general public, which take his class in hopes of sharpening their interpersonal and speaking skills. Oddly enough, Challis says the entire experience has benefited his own comedic talents.

Something else new for Challis is his opening act, which happens to be his 30-year-old son Thaddeus. The former Cleveland rock guitarist recently joined the family business and hasn’t looked back. In fact, the junior Challis will be opening for his dad at The Funny Farm, where Challis said he can’t wait to bring his own laid-back style of comedy back to Northeast Ohio.

“I do a lot of things about sweating the small stuff,” Challis said. “They say don’t sweat the small stuff, but the small stuff makes up most of our lives. We only handle big stuff once in a while. So that’s what I talk about, and I make it funny. I don’t look for funny topics. I take regular topics and make it funny, and it’s relatable to the crowd with high energy.

“Also, I couldn’t be happier being with my son. It just makes for a really nice kind of family atmosphere for a show. And the edgy people will like it too. We have plenty of edge. It’s a show kind of like a roller-coaster ride with people going, ‘Man, I want to do that again.’”