Jimmy Pardo has been a stand-up comic for over 20 years. He was the warm-up act during the criminally short run of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Pardo has earned the respect of his comic peers and a loyal fan base. But Pardo is not yet a household name.
Pardo’s podcast, Never Not Funny is introducing a growing audience to his singular talent, and those new fans are coming out to see him perform on the road and at his frequent shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles.
Jimmy Pardo On The Road
With the income generated by the podcast, Pardo doesn’t have to go on the road as often as he did before: not a bad turn of events for a comedian with a young child at home. When he was working on The Tonight Show, however, Pardo could be even more selective.
“When I worked for Conan, it made it that much easier, because I didn’t have to go anywhere. So if I went on the road, it was of my own choosing; I was able to handpick where I wanted to go," he says. “When Conan got canceled, I pretty much just said yes to everybody. Because a lot of people called, and said ‘Now that Jimmy’s not working, does he want to do our club?’ If they’re nice enough to call and ask to have me, I’ll certainly go and do it.
"So, I’ve been working [on the road] a lot more lately than I want to. But it’s good. I hope to go back to work with Conan in November.”
Pardo On Stage: “Something to Behold”
Thousands of listeners get an unadulterated dose of Pardo each week on the podcast; but there is no substitute for seeing Jimmy Pardo live on stage. When he works the crowd, firing on all cylinders, Pardo's superhuman wit is staggering.
NNF fan Craig Bierko (whose myriad talents have made him a star on Broadway, television and movies) waxes poetic about Pardo’s talent.
"Jimmy has a genuine authority on stage that comes from years of experience and a real love for the form. As a fellow comedy fan, I can hear so many of the greats influences rattling around in his delivery, all of them dovetailing with his own innate intelligence and fast, fast wit and generating a singularly unique performer who hits the stage with momentum and assurance.
"I hear the vocal quality and timing of a Playboy Key Club era comic who's also absorbed the forty years of humanity following that era, so he's hip, not dated – also that sense of bygone gentility is very likable and allows him acreage other comics have to fight twice as hard to occupy.
"You trust him like you trust Rickles. He's barking, never biting. He's playing the nice guy – the hip blowhard who knows when to throw a haymaker and when to back off and move on. I appreciate comics who pull that off the way jazz fans appreciate Monk. It's something to behold.“
NNF and Pardo’s Stand-Up Career
Generating six hours a month of off-the-cuff comedy on Never Not Funny is impressive in its own right, but Pardo says that his work on the podcast has improved his stand-up as well.
“It’s made me looser on stage. It’s made me trust myself more on stage. It’s made me not afraid to improvise an entire show if I want to, stream-of-consciousness style like I do on the podcast.
“And it’s brought fans out. So, now, when I walk on stage, while it may not be an entire roomful of Jimmy Pardo fans, there are at least a handful of them. And they bring a positive vibe to the showroom. So it’s been great.”
Christine E. Taylor - Christine E. Taylor is a freelance writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Christine is currently writing a series of articles ...
Join the Conversation