Comedian Chris Munch Talks About Career And Upcoming Shows

Chris Munch, a local comedian with a national following, joined LeAnne Taylor on News On 6 to talk about his career and his upcoming show at the Loony Bin Comedy Club.

LeAnne: This is funny because apparently, we crossed paths.

Chris: You came to my high school back in 19-something. It was a career day, and you did a journalism thing, and I was there, star-struck and excited to see you.

LeAnne: And clearly did not choose journalism.

Chris: No, you were very honest. Yeah, I realized that day that journalism isn't for me.

LeAnne: I basically said, Do you want to make to make a living, or do you want to have fun? Well, it sounds like you are having a blast.

Chris: I have an absolute blast. It's amazing. I can't believe I get to do what I get to do today.

LeAnne: So you graduated from Owasso High School and went to work at a church doing a lot of creative stuff. At what point did you say, 'Hey, I think I want to do social media, and I want to do stand-up'?

Chris: So, things shifted at my job, where I wasn't really doing the things, you know, creatively, that I was before. I just really felt it was time for me to kind of step out. And I always dreamt of being on Saturday Night Live and just being a professional performer. I found social media to kind of just be a way to kind of be my own Saturday Night Live, to go like, hey, I can do whatever characters I want and be as crazy as silly as I want. So, I stepped out, started doing that and just found people connecting with what I did, it is so cool.

LeAnne: You have quite a few characters. You have Pastor Bobby, and you have Steven Stevens. And where do you get your inspiration?

Chris: Honestly, it's everywhere. Like, I've always been fascinated with people. I love observing the way people do things or why they do things. It is just so fascinating to me. And so I think a lot of the inspiration just comes from everyday life and just kind of exaggerating certain things. I've always found it really funny, people, myself included, who lack self-awareness. Just this overt confidence, even in the face of maybe you shouldn't have so much confidence. I've always thought that was really funny. And, you know, like "Dumb and Dumber", the movie, there's a lot of that kind of stuff in it. So, that was a big inspiration for me when I was younger, and so you see a lot of that in my humor.

LeAnne: I love it. And the Olympics, I mean, you can do current events timeliness. That's what's great; your creative juices can flow.

Chris: That's exactly right. Yeah, I'm always looking at current events that are going on that I can put Steven into that world. How would Steven interact with this idea of being inspired by the Olympics? And that he thinks he has what it takes to be in the Olympics, but he clearly doesn't. Like that kind of stuff that has always been funny to me.

LeAnne: Yeah, what kind of response? I know because of social media. I mean, you get an instant response.

Chris: Yeah, you do, and not always the response you want. So there's been lots of comments there. You have to just kind of go, OK, but there are a lot of great ones too. So it's been really special to connect with people. I do personalized greetings and things for people all over the world. You know, it's just mind-boggling. I'm doing messages for people in Scotland or Australia or whatever, and so that's been really special. But, yeah, just the response too, when you put yourself out there, it's kind of scary to kind of, you know, just do what you think is funny and but to find people who resonate with that, and it's just been really cool.

LeAnne: Also, you've been spotted in some commercials. Yeah, that's something that you've been doing for a while.

Chris: I have been doing commercials for a while. I have got a lot of friends that do production and stuff like that, and so, yeah, like the Braums one, if you saw that one, that was a lot of fun. Got to eat ice cream all day basically.

LeAnne: That's a really tough job. Getting paid to do this. It's great. You've got a comedy special stand-up routine. Tell us about that.

Chris: Yes, it's coming to the Loony Bin on Sept. 24 it's going to be a little bit of stand-up, but I'm also going to bring the characters as well. I love live performing; honestly, that's my favorite. So being able to interact with an audience is really, really fun. So yeah, come, come hang out. Check us out.

You can buy tickets here.