Comedian’s routine includes the Valley

October 10, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

Comedian Mike Jones might call Cleveland home, but the high-energy comic loves performing in the Youngstown area.

“Oh yeah, I think of Youngstown as my home comedy club,” Jones said. “The whole surrounding area. I don’t care if I’m in Boardman, Niles, Liberty, whatever. Just Youngstown, period. They’ve showed me the most love during my whole comedy career.

“They’re just real people, and they can relate to and understand what I’m talking about, which is everyday life situations.”

For more than a quarter of a century, Jones has been working the regional comedy club circuit.

During that time, he opened for the likes of Jamie Foxx, Bernie Mac, Cedric The Entertainer, D.L. Hughley, Eddie Griffin and Drew Carey.

While early on Jones admits he was influenced by the expletive-rants of Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor, today his comedy – aside from the rare f-bomb – is pretty clean for all audiences. That includes crowds of seniors and church folks, as well as motivational speaking gigs.

Regarding the differences between performing in front of a comedy club audience and a church crowd, Jones said he was surprised about what he discovered.

“I used to think I had to do church jokes but they’re just regular people,” Jones said.

“They want to laugh. So I just go in there and make them laugh. Some comedians want to go in there and do jokes about the choir singing and the pastor, but the people don’t want all of that. Whatever your routine is, you’re better off doing that.”

Today, Jones’ routine centers around familiar themes such as getting older, kids, traveling and driving.

He’s also working on new material that may leave some of the men in the audience squirming.

“There’s motivation in my comedy,” Jones said. “I do it for men’s health. I do a thing on your prostate and when I had mine checked. I’m trying to bring awareness to it so guys can get theirs checked. You can’t deny the subject is serious but it’s also funny.

“I just go up there and explain what happened to me. I put a funny twist on it. Every guy knows that they don’t like talking about it. And when I talk about it, they don’t mind raising their hands saying they had it done.”

At this point in his career, Jones admits any dreams to move to a coast to pursue stardom have probably passed.

Still, he finds joy in his work, which he’s hoping to pass on to audiences attending his show tonight at the Comedy Cellar at Mojo’s Pub in Austintown.

“When people leave my show, they’ll feel happy and glad they came to the show,” Jones said.

“The main thing is whatever trouble they had that day, they’re not even thinking about that by the time they leave the show. That’s because they came out, they laughed, had a great time and they felt included.”