Natural Born Killer Comedian - Cris Rodriguez

Update 2 - Cris continues to deliver killer sets, with this 'Seattle' debut performance at The Comedy Underground Sunday, Nov 28th 2010:




Update 1 - Cris continued his reign as a Natural Born Killer Comedian! With his debut performance on a big comedy stage at Laughs Comedy Spot Tuesday, Nov 9th 2010.  Here is his debut big stage performance:

This is the first post in a new series called Natural Born Killer Comedians. These are the rare "a star is born" comedians that you get the opportunity to see go up on stage for one of their first ever stand up comedy performances. You have the distinct feeling that you are witnessing the beginning of great things to come when they proceed to kill and give an outstanding stand up comedy performance.

I was lucky enough to hit the record button on my camera phone and catch the first ever stand up comedy performance of Cris Rodriguez when he tried his comedy chops at the Pegasus Open Mic Comedy Night in Kirkland, WA.

From the very first opening bit, Cris brilliantly boiled down the open mic comedy scene:

"I've been coming to these open mic nights ... I notice these little small ones are ... they're all right ... To me it's basically like, Strippers stripping for strippers"

The crowd erupted in laughter and the rest is history that you can see here:


Cris continued to kill the audience with nonstop laughter for the next 6 minutes or so. I can only imagine how much better Cris is going to get, as I watched him put together his set 30 minutes before I encouraged him to go up. He wasn't planning on going up that evening at all.

When Cris was done, he got high-fives, hand shakes, and congratulations from audience members and his fellow comics alike. Many of us told him how much we enjoyed his set and how awestruck we were at his comfort in delivering big laughs in his virgin performance.

I'm looking forward to hearing the comedy perspective that Cris shares over the coming months and I think you should come out to Pegasus or Laughs Comedy Spot to check him out yourself. I'm sure you'll walk away with the feeling that you're seeing a rising comedy star getting his start.

I interviewed Cris for this new series and we talked about what his comedy influences were, his goals, his family and his reaction to all the praise he received after his killer set.

Here's what Cris had to say in his own words: