Velveeta Room celebrates 20 years of anything-goes comedy

By Patrick Beach
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Velveeta Room, the younger, more deviant comedy club sibling of Esther's Follies, is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a series of shows beginning today. (Do the work of countless comedians and insert your own punch line here.) It is not, and never was, a strip-mall-type comedy club, as Velveeta and Esther's veteran Kerry Awn likes to point out. There's always the potential for combustible laughs, surprise, maybe a net getting thrown over performer and crowd alike. Check out a show this weekend and you'll likely see people who are playing much bigger rooms these days. Read some remembrances from comedians below. And viva la Velveeta.

• Kerry Awn: The Velveeta Room was named after a character I do called Ronnie Velveeta who is a kind of washed up hack old-school comedian who wants to be in Vegas in the '60s but is in the Velveeta Room in the '00s.

The Velv has always been a workshop/open stage type of room. It's one of the few stand-up comedy stages in not only Texas but the U.S.A. that gives would-be comedians a place to start, learn and develop the craft of stand-up. Anything can and does happen in the name of comedy. ... The V Room is known nationwide among comedians. They know it's a fun room on a fun street in a fun town. We've had Ron White, Lewis Black, Dave Attell and countless national comics stop in and do a spot.

The Velveeta Room was first located in the space that's now the Blind Pig Pub on Sixth Street. We took the space over from a topless club called the Embassy Room and left the decor as it was. We had a stripper pole on stage. For a while, at first, guys would wander in thinking it was still a strip club.

Austin has always been know for its music scene, and comedians are just the people who want to be in a band and are just too lazy or not talented enough to learn to play an instrument but can make fun of the people who do.

• Nancy Reed (comic who also booked the Velveeta Room in the late '80s and early '90s): We used to bring in a hypnotist, Gary Conrad, on a regular basis. During one show he gave a suggestion to a big strong guy in his mid-20s that after the show, he would really need to urinate, but would discover when he got to the men's room that he had no "equipment." At the end of the show, Gary forgot about this suggestion and headed back to his hotel room. We suddenly heard a blood-curdling scream from the men's room. This guy burst out yelling, "Help me look for it! I was sitting over here!" He began throwing tables aside like they were papîer maché, describing his "equipment" to us, and tearing the room apart. It took eight guys to restrain him while we called the hotel to intercept Gary. He ran back, snapped his fingers and said "Sleep." The poor guy was out like a light. When they brought him out of it, he looked around the room and said, "Gosh! What happened to the furniture?" I've believed in hypnotism ever since.

• Chip Pope: To me, the best thing about the Velveeta Room is the sense that anything can happen, and how that "anything" can really run the spectrum. On any given night, you may see Fred Bothwell whipping his shirt off to expose his musk ox-esque hairy torso while yammering on about Texas, or you might get Ron White popping in to do an amazing guest spot. It's a truly unpredictable grab bag, for better or worse, and I can't say that about most comedy clubs.

20 years of cheese

The anniversary shows are 8 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday, and 10 p.m. Saturday at the Velveeta Room, 521 E. Sixth St. Cost: $10 Thursday, $12 Friday and Saturday. 469-9116.