ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 31, 1996 TAG: 9610310070
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: OFF THE CLOCK
SOURCE: CHRIS HENSON
Q: What's the last thing every redneck says just before he dies?
A: ``Hey, y'all. Watch this!''
When my friend Brian told me this joke I lost two fillings laughing so hard.
``Knock, Knock.''
``Who's there?''
``Charlie, the interrupting cow.''
``Charlie, the inter-''
``MOO-OO-OO!''
I laughed at this one until I pulled a muscle in my neck. For a week, I walked around slathered with Absorbine Junior.
Which begs the question: Is laughter really the best medicine?
It's been proven that a good guffaw has healing properties. But to guys like Frank Lunney, alias Captain Rowdy, comedy is more like a community service. This guy has one goal in life: to make people laugh.
His partner, Maureen Dickerson, had been working with Jimmy Butler at the old, now-defunct, Roanoke Comedy Club. She managed it for the last few months of its life. When the club closed over the summer, Dickerson and Lunney knew they had to do something.
``You don't want to be in a town without comedy,'' says Lunney. ``It's awful.''
What they did was take a big chance and open Slaphappy's Comedy Club in the basement of the Patrick Henry Hotel in downtown Roanoke. ``We started poking around looking for some sites,'' Lunney says. ``Bill Carter, the general manager at the Patrick Henry, pointed out that this used to be the site of the original comedy club. Nobody had been in there for six years, so we had some renovations to do.''
``We've just thrown everything we've got into it,'' says Dickerson. ``But, we're doing something really great. In order to make people laugh, we had to find a place. Then you kind of need to have a bar. Can't have a bar without food. So now we're a comedy club and restaurant.''
And even though starting the club is a tough proposition, these folks seem up to it. ``We have that energy,'' Lunney says. ``We have some new ideas. We're bringing in a lot of the old Roanoke favorites like Faye Woodard, the Grandmother from Hell, Phil Hogan and the Fat Doctor. But we're also trying some new faces. We want to show Roanoke the caliber of comedy there is out there. A variety of acts. We've got puppets, magicians, national acts - the works.''
Lunney and Dickerson are both stand-up comics themselves, and they believe that gives them an edge.
``I think the problem with some comedy clubs is that the people that book them have never spent three minutes on stage,'' Lunney says. ``So they don't have that love. I'm doing this because it's the only thing I know how to do. That's the thing that people are going to notice when they come to our club.''
* * *
Another thing people will notice is that the walls of Slaphappy's are becoming covered with quips, quotes and jokes. Here's your chance to help decorate.
Enter the OFF THE CLOCK YUCK-FEST JOKE COMPETITION. Call, fax, write or e-mail in your best joke to me, and you could win two tickets to the Slaphappy's Comedy Club, courtesy of this column.
Plus, we'll print the best jokes in OFF THE CLOCK, while Slaphappy's will add them to the walls. For details, check out the box that goes with this story.
Need a little inspiration? Then check out Slaphappy's tonight. They've prepared a Halloween comedy extravaganza to help out.
``I'll be headlining,'' Lunney says. ``And we'll have a great magician, Brad Reeder.''
When Lunney takes the stage, it's his alter ego, Captain Rowdy, you will be dealing with. He's a big guy with a crazy haircut and a rat-a-tat style of comedy.
``Oh! and here's a little sidebar!'' adds Lunney. ``The club is haunted!''
According to legend, a woman named Daisy haunts the basement. ``When we were renovating,'' Lunney says, ``we had two women wallpapering the women's bathroom. They were down there by themselves working. And one of them goes, `What!? What!?' And the other says, `What are you yelling at?' And the first one says, `Why do you keep saying ``hello'' to me?' And the other says, `I haven't been saying anything to you.''' But the other insisted, "`I distinctly heard a woman's voice.'
``The very next night, they're doing some work, and the radio turns off. It's one of those boom boxes with a tape deck. Well, they figured the station went off the air. But when they went to check on the radio, the play button on the tape player was pushed down, and there's no tape.
``We hear voices and knocking all the time. It's perfect for Halloween, man, although it gets a little creepy when you're down there alone.''
Lunney has been in the laugh business for nearly 15 years. How he got his start almost sounds like a joke:
``I was a champion on the `Joker's Wild' in 1982,'' he says, rather matter-of-factly. The ``Joker's Wild'' was a big game show on daytime television. ``I won $29,875.00 in cash and prizes. I quit my job at an airline, never went back for my last check. I just quit and went on the road doing stand-up and booking comedy. That's the last `real job' I ever had, whatever that means.''
While you're watching Captain Rowdy going through his routine, keep in mind that this is a funny man on a serious mission. ``I think one of the things people have lost is a respect for comedy as an art form,'' he says. ``But, making people laugh - man, that's one of the oldest gigs in the world.''
Anyway, laughter is good for what ails you. That, and some Absorbine Junior.
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: box containing information of Joke context.by CNB