Jo Koy
My mom raised us like we were still in the Philippines. She tried to cure everything at home like a real Filipino woman. You had to die to go to the hospital. My mom cured everything with Vicks VapoRub. I should've died nine times when I was a kid!Collection: Home
I get involved in the political, but I don't bring it to the stage because that's not my style.
Everyone is where they are at because they worked hard for it. Don't ever hate on someone's hustle. Just figure out how you can get there.
Comedy is just an unspoken language. Everybody understands it. Funny is funny. When it's not funny, they'll let you know.
My real name is Joseph Herbert. My dad is white; my mom's Asian, Filipino. And when I started stand-up 22 years ago, I used to go up as Joseph Herbert, and I would just have to defend my name. Every time I went onstage, it was so annoying. People would heckle.
What I enjoy the most about being Filipino is our culture.
I'm a Mariners fan! I'm from Seattle, so I'm all about the Mariners and the Seahawks.
It's so crazy: my mom and dad divorced when I was 11, and my fondest memories are in the Philippines and being raised by my mom. It's such a big part of my life.
I got a big Filipino family. That's what I love about being Pinoy: we all gotta surround ourselves with family; we all gotta laugh and do things together. I love it! It's family first.
I do know one thing: you Midwesterners are laughers.
There's nothing more fun than seeing the things that you dreamed about when you were a kid come true. I'm headlining an iconic theater in New York City during the New York Comedy Festival. When you're starting off as a comedian, you don't think that's ever going to happen.
Whatever I talk about onstage is just my story. My fan base is broad... We all have the same mom; it's just that ours has an accent.
I was working at Nordstrom Rack, Borders Books, and I was cleaning yachts on the weekends for private parties and being a busboy. I had to break down the tables and roll the forks up in napkins. And I was still doing standup.
Whenever I talk about my culture, I want to shine a light on it. Even though I'm having fun, I want to make sure it's uplifting. I'm proud of it, and that's always been the foundation of my jokes.
Everything I put on stage is real; that's what my life is. My emotions - I wear them on my sleeve. I'm definitely putting my heart out there when I'm on stage.
For every stand-up comedian, Just for Laughs is our Super Bowl. Every comic in the world goes to Just for Laughs in Montreal. And they presented me with the Stand-Up Comedian of the Year award for 2018. This is my Oscar; this is my Emmy. That's my baby now.
You could have a room full of the best comedians in the world and, for some reason, Chris Farley would take the cake. He was that good, just naturally. God's gift.
I can't stop working!
A lot of people ask why I don't talk about my dad, and I want to, I just don't have that many stories. When he moved out, he moved to a different state, so it was just my mom and I.
I'm used to taking risks - my career was a risk. Being a stand-up comic is not something that's normally accepted when your mother is Filipino.
I love storytellers. When I was growing up, my inspirations were watching Eddie Murphy, Dennis Wolfberg, and Louie Anderson. These guys were great at telling stories, and I made that my own style, talking about things that happened to me and trying to make them funny.
I have so much history with Just For Laughs. My career took off there.
New York is always claiming East, and Los Angeles is always claiming West. It's in everything: acting, hip-hop, sports. But I love it. That rivalry makes you work harder.
What makes me laugh is hearing the stuff about my son or the stuff about my mom. I was a big fan of Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy; they talked a lot about their moms and their kids. Those are the things that inspired me to do stand-up.
HBO was a big thing for stand-up, and when you're a broke kid with absolutely nothing to do on the weekend, there was always video recording your HBO specials. I would just rewind those specials and watch them like they were new again.
Las Vegas gave me my career.
Tacoma is actually my hometown, but if you live within 40 minutes of Seattle, you say Seattle.
The coolest thing for me is that I've been blessed with a nice following. The people that come to see me are fans, and that happens in Vegas, too.
My son - oh man, I think, every year, I'm getting 25 to 30 minutes of material from talking about him. He just keeps growing.
Comedy is not the first choice in Vegas for entertainment.
I used to put flyers on cars in parking lots, anything to get people to come to my shows. I was always having to think outside the box, and even to this day, I still try and come up with creative ways to market my shows.
Right around 11 or 12, when I saw Eddie Murphy's standup special 'Delirious,' and I taped it on a VHS tape - I think I watched it every single day. I lived and breathed Eddie Murphy for that whole year.
I always told myself I'd never be like my mother if I had a kid, but here I am, the same thing. I don't know how this happened. The same type of disciplining, the same kind of forcing him to perform in front of people, not buying him things when I could afford whatever he wanted - it's crazy!
There's a lot of open mics, a lot of comedy clubs. Whatever money I could make was OK with me. As long as I could pay the rent, eat food, and tell jokes, doing it was good enough for me.
I was a kid, and I would watch standup comics do the 'Tonight Show,' and if Johnny Carson liked you, he'd wave you over to the desk; that pretty much meant you were about to be the most successful comedian in the country for the next few years.
It's neat seeing people that aren't necessarily part of my demographic who really get the jokes. I love it.
I always wanted to build something in Vegas, especially off The Strip. I know how it is for locals. They don't like going to The Strip for entertainment or even to eat.
I started in 1989. I was the booker, the promoter, the headliner. I wore all the hats.
I didn't realize how many people watched 'The Tonight Show.'
With Comedy Central, they produced it and did everything - I just had to walk up there and tell the jokes - whereas with Netflix, I was heavily, creatively involved, from the logo to the lighting of the room to selecting the venue to selling the tickets and promoting it.
Something about Floridians, man - they are good to me. I'm glad my comedy translates to them.
Just to talk in front of people is scary. And now you gotta learn how to be funny, and now you gotta learn how to make people laugh at what you think is funny. That's not easy.
With the blessing of social media and platforms like Amazon Prime and Netflix, you get this broad audience that I don't think we knew about when we were kids.
The West Coast blew me up years ago. Ten years ago, I was already selling out five or six shows in a row in the West. Then all of a sudden, the Midwest, Chicago, Illinois, just embraced me so well.
It's been really stressful being on the road a lot, especially when you're a dad. You miss your son a lot. But you gotta make it work because you get to live a good life. I have to sacrifice.
I always think about when I was a kid, and I didn't have anything, and now I get to see my son live a good life.
I always wanted to let people know I was Filipino, but I didn't want to go up on stage and make it so you wouldn't understand my jokes because you're white or black. I always wanted to let people know I was Filipino through my mom. That was always my goal. That way, everyone got it. You don't have to be Filipino to understand my mom.
The appearance on 'The Tonight Show' was one thing, but the YouTube afterlife was incredible.
I knew when I got out of high school that I was going to be a stand-up comic.
Whether it was a shoe store or working the front desk of a hotel, I was always interacting with people. I'd get that look because I'm half-white and half-Filipino. They could tell I was something, but they really couldn't tell what I was.