Today we’d like to introduce you to Burt Teplitzky.
Hi Burt, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
In my case, in the early 90’s (1990’s not 1890’s), I took a few week stand up comedy class in Orange County with Steve Klasky (I believe a claim to fame of his is having Will Ferrell in a class). After the six weeks we had a “graduation” performance at a local comedy club, and I remember, it seemed at the time, receiving only one strong laugh, and that was when I mentioned the “lakers” for some reason. I think there was so much silence, I just asked the audience, “how about those lakers?” After the class I told Steve Klasky, the teacher, that I didn’t think anyone laughed, that they all hated me, and they never want to see me perform again. Steve looked at me and said, “go with that feeling.” I didn’t take his advice (as my parents would have wished). Then I took a class from the Co owner (at the time) at UCLA Extension of the Hollywood IMPROV Comedy Club, Mark Lonow (the initial founder and partner was Budd Friedman, now deceased). I believe the IMPROV Co Owners had since sold to Levity. Mark let me use the Santa Monica IMPROV (existed at that time) to hire some of the comics from the class to perform for realtors (I was a real estate agent then and still hold a real estate brokers license), so it was a corporate event. Since that event was successful (made money), I had an idea to start the IMPROV Corporate Training Division (training salespeople and CEO’S to give funnier trainings and speeches-I had some Dale Carnegie assistant training experience), and Mark Lonow and Budd Friedman titled me “managing partner” for that venture, and we held trainings and created an infomercial “Stand Up For Your Success” that aired in the early 1990’s. Following that, while vacationing I received a moving violation ticket in Orlando, Florida and wanted go to traffic school class there ( like we can do in California) to remove the violation from my driving record to keep my insurance rates low. At the time, the Hollywood IMPROV had comedians teaching the classes in Ca, but not in Florida so I obtained a “license” from the IMPROV. to operate for the IMPROV Comedy Traffic Schools throughout Florida. That was successful but has since gone mostly online due to the internet, which I am not a part of any longer (well, I do use the internet at least). With that corporate type experience behind me, the Wall Street Journal wrote a story about my corporate comedy journey in 2011 and I had since written two books (“Sell It With Humor” and “Stand Up For Yor Success”), a more recently, a comedy book (and audio version) titled “It’s Not Going To Be Okay…But That’s Okay.” I then hosted stand up comedy shows and open mics mostly at Canter’s Deli in Hollywood in the attached Kibitz Room (where Michele Haines now hosts since I left) from 2013-2023. There I produced shows such as “Comedy On Wry,” “Signature Bits, ” and where I taped my first comedy special, “Inside Scars.” Within the last several years some of my comedy is played and rotated on some of the Sirius XM Comedy Channels. So, I have one comedy special on Tubi TV, “Inside Scars,” another one on Amazon, “Scar Tissue,” and a third on Youtube, “Clips Ahoy.” Currently, I am working on producing a solo show with some of my best bits along with my accordion (which I know how to play, unfortunately), titled, “Accordion To Burt” that is scheduled to premier at Santa Monica Playhouse Complex, Saturday, September 6, at 7:30PM. Personally, I am married (over eight years) for the second time, and my wife, Thao, has been great by allowing me to include material about our marriage as long as there is some money in it…or at least some laughs:)
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There was a very difficult transition moving from Corporate comedy to more mainstream, everyday life comedy. Some inspirations are Bill Burr, Jerry Seinfeld and Garry Shandling (“How’s my hair?”). By the way, I have no hair (“How’s my head?”) Corporate comedy was safer. In many cases, bosses ordered their employees to go to these performances and dinners so there was always an attentive audience who did or didn’t want to be there. Corporates did pay well, and in some cases the airline tickets they purchased for me cost the company more than the fee they were paying me. I did offer to fly discount airlines if they would just give me the cash, but they said no. I guess since they paid me half the fee up front they wanted to be sure my mouth arrived safely, or at least in one piece. These events usually also had to be clean, not that it mattered much when hired by International companies since half of their International employees didn’t speak English well enough to understand the jokes. One time I was hired to roast a CEO, whom I had never met. The employees shared a lot of dirt on him in advance (cheap, boring, etc.) and I used some of it at this show. At the event, after 7 minutes of my roasting him, the CEO walked on stage and handed me a check for me to leave early. Like right then! I remember the last joke before he walked on stage: “The CEO is so cheap he superglued a dollar bill inside his wallet”. See, template. The CEO was not too happy, but I never saw employees laugh harder. So, I guess I did my job. I was the hired gun. In many cases corporate jokes were template or just vanilla. Here’s an example: If a customer tells you, as a salesperson, that he/she wants to think about the purchase because they want to check around with competitors, you say “when you go to the grocery store to buy eggs, you probably check the box first to be sure all of the eggs are unbroken. They say, “of course.” Okay then, do you also check all of the other boxes to be sure they are unbroken as well? If not, you should just buy from me.” Mainstream comedy takes seemingly hundreds of open mics and small shows just to come close to perfecting what seems like 10-20 Minutes of mainstream comedy receiving several laughs per minute. But, with mainstream comedy the reward comes with those laughs from the audience that you created from scratch from your life or whatever inspired you. The money is not always there in mainstream. A great reward for me once was when a guy walked up to me after a show and bought me a beer because he thought I was funny. So, mainstream is way more rewarding, and , if I need money, I can just go and sell a condo.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
For me, one of my proudest moments was in the early 1990’s as mentioned earlier, was being offered a managing partnership for the IMPROV’s Corporate Training Division with the co founders of the World Famous Hollywood’s IMPROV Comedy Clubs, Budd Friedman and Mark Lonow, and taping an infomercial (Stand Up For Your Success) with their blessing and with their blessing the use of the Santa Monica and Hollywood IMPROV Clubs. Once Budd Friedman came to the Santa Monica Club to tape a spot for the Infomercial I was producing, and on tape said about me, “Burt is the brainchild of this product and that he is a legend in his own mind.” A compliment, coming from Budd. I thought at the time that I would get to perform spots at the IMPROV clubs that weren’t just corporate. But, I was working very hard to build the business and never really got around to asking the way I would have liked to. But, having the “managing partner” position made the venture worth everything I had worked for, at the time. More currently, the another major accomplishment is having Sirius XM Radio Comedy channels approve and accept some of my comedy bits into their rotation, and get paid pretty well each time a bit or joke was played. Writing, and audio recording my latest comedy book “It’s Not Going To Be Okay…But That’s Okay” has also been a lot of fun. Much of my comedy centers around stories from that book from my life. And finally, having three comedy specials on streaming (Inside Scars, Scar Tissue, Clips Ahoy) has been a lot of fun. Sometimes, if I need to go to sleep, I will rewatch parts of those. That usually does the trick.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
I do love to watch stand up comedy on youtube.com, and listen to any podcast featuring stand up comedians and/or comedy writers. I also read comedy biographies. Right now I am reading “All About Me” by Mel Brooks. If you want to watch a video with a lot of jokes, check out 1984’s video (youtube) of Garry Shandlings “Alone in Vegas.” You are sure to laugh a lot. However, by far the most entertaining app I have is my gym app. It’s always makes me laugh as to how often I go to the gym, and how little the results are for me. Although, it does seem though that recently, one of my calves may have increased in size.
Contact Info:
- Website: www,burtcomedy
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/burtwithau/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/burtwithau
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/yFtfXfKMESw
- Other: https://linktr.ee/burtwithau
Image Credits
Gene Hamm
