NBC’s Last Comic Standing winner Josh Blue describes his humor as dry and sarcastic. Like many other successful comedians, he keeps his audiences laughing. But the similarities stop there.
Blue’s humor is unique and his struggle with cerebral palsy creates even more unique material.
By satirizing his disease throughout much of his show, he hopes to change people’s views about others with disabilities.
“I think it definitely has given me an edge. I’m not just another goofy white guy,” he said. “I just think it’s so cool to be able to bring a new perspective on disabilities to people, and I hope when you leave my show, you have a different understanding about disabled people.”
Winning Last Comic Standing in 2006 accelerated Blue’s comedic accomplishments, taking him from a popular local stand-up act to national acclaim.
“What an amazing experience the whole thing was,” he said. “I just made people laugh and being the winner of making people laugh is a really cool feeling.”
Blue has performed at more than 1,000 venues, and his favorite city to tour,he said, is his hometown of Denver.
But he is no stranger to performing in front of college students, finding that college students get his humor much better than any other group.
At his show in Columbia, Blue has new material to perform that’s he really looking forward to.
“I really found myself a new voice and I feel very reinvigorated with it,” he said. “It’s exciting to be doing it.”
Although much of his performance will be previously scripted, about 10 percent will be completely improvised.
“I truly don’t know what’s going to happen until I get there,” Blue said. “I hope it’ll be funny and that the audience likes it. I haven’t had a bad show yet.”
In addition to comedy, Blue has many other hobbies. He competed in Athens as part of the 2004 Paralympics soccer team and also loves to create artwork. His favorite thing to do though, is to be a good dad to his two children, Simon and Seika.
“What’s cool about performing is that when I’m gone touring, I miss them, but when I’m home, I’m home and I don’t have to work all day, and I can just spend all day with them,” he said.
Blue loves performing to a small, intimate audience, like that at Deja Vu.
“I’m very excited about performing there,” he said. “I love being able to do what I love and make people laugh, and when you put my cerebral palsy into the limelight, it really helps. I get lots of comments and people stop me, thank me for bringing attention to this disability. It’s pretty awesome.”