Danny Johnson Danny Johnson is a seasoned clean stand-up comedian with over 15 years of experience, known for his relatable material and performances at corporate events, clubs, and churches. His career took off with his successful Dry Bar Comedy special, The Chusky Life, and has continued to grow with his latest self-produced special on YouTube titled Everything Bothers Me. Originally from Long Island, New York, Danny developed his comedic voice within a large, loud family where humor was the key to getting attention. After a "decade of excellence" in college and a brief stint in corporate life, he fully committed to stand-up, eventually moving to Florida and working his way up through the comedy club circuit. DannyJohnson.com https://youtube.com/live/Ogsqjac2918 Bad AI Transcript Hello, everybody, and welcome to a conversation with Danny Johnson. Go figure. Now, Danny, the Danny part sounds funny. The Johnson part, not so funny. Danny is a comedian, stand-up comedian. He is a clean stand-up. He likes to put that all over his webpage, just so you know. If he didn't have it on his webpage, there'd just be the F word, and everybody would know that he was a clean comedian, right? He does corporate events. clubs, churches, over 15 years. He had a dry bar comedy special called The Chesky Life, which I love that title. And you have a new thing coming out called, and I'm already blanking on it here. You can tell me, Danny. Everything bothers me. There you go. I knew I was going to get you to say it, and I would say it as well. Danny Johnson. You can go to his website. We'll just get this stuff out of the way. DannyJohnson.com.
at Danny Johnson comedy. And we'll visit those throughout the talk here, but I like to put everything up front so people don't have to wait. Cause you know, they may get bored with this conversation. I really just want to know more about Danny. I don't really care to listen to this other guy. So we'll make sure everybody's happy. Right. Look at that. I like that plugs up front. So yeah, everybody. Yeah, exactly. We'll do that. I don't want to, you know, you make, everybody makes people wait, right? Like it's, Like they're doing them a favor when they're really not. Yeah. It's the worst to watch a video where… And then sometimes they don't get to the point ever and there's another part. Right. In part two, we'll finally tell you where to find these people. No, not for me. I'm done with you, buddy. Blocked. That's right. No more part twos. Right. So everything bothers me. I mean, this could be everybody's comedy special. Couldn't it be? Yeah. I think… And it's funny. The title of it was…
created after we shot the special in Atlanta earlier this year. And it was really just a culmination of, I do actually mention that phrase in my special, but in just going through the material and the final cut, it was like, this was just a sort of a list of things that bother me that I was talking about. There you go. This is, your book's coming out called How to Write the Easiest Comedy Set. just things that bother you. Yeah. And so one of the producers was like, he goes, it seems like everything bothers you. And I go, that's a perfect name for. So let's, that's, that's what's happening now. Let's go back 15 years and say, you know, young Danny, younger Danny, in your case, probably what teenage Danny is, is,
going to be a stand-up comedian. I mean, how did that all come about? As far back as I can remember, I've always been interested in comedy. I grew up in a really large family in Long Island, New York. And we're all loud. We're all poking fun at each other constantly. And if you want any attention whatsoever at any giant family function, then you better have some sort of talent or be funny. And I remember… I remember starting to do like imitations or impersonations of my relatives at family functions. And it was getting a laugh. And I realized how powerful that was. Even at a young age, I'm like, wow, I'm getting positive attention. Just making fun of my uncle or cousin or whoever, you know, just kind of impersonating them. And then I've stumbled in my teenage years across Saturday Night Live, which of course is not stand-up, but just fell in love with those characters. And that led, staying up late,
on the weekend led me to staying up late during the week and watching, uh, the late night TV shows and, and, uh, catching standup, you know, uh, Robert Klein and Jerry Seinfeld and Carlin. And, um, they were just talking for five or six minutes into a microphone and getting laughs. And I was like, this is really appealing. Um, and it's baffling, you know, I didn't understand or necessarily crack up at a lot of the jokes, but, you know, I was younger, but, As I grew older, it led to my first stage performance at 18 at a small club in Long Island. And I only did well because we brought 63 of the 73 audience members to the show. So crowdsourcing was your friend basically at 18. You're like, hey, everybody. Yeah. If you want a false sense of hope, just stack the crowd with friends and family.
That was Danny Johnson reads his Rolodex. I think that was your act back then. You're just, if you come, I will read your name on stage. Right. And then I finished up college in Long Island, my first two years of college. And I didn't do standups. And from the time I was 18, I didn't do standup until I finished my senior year of college. And by that time I'd moved to Florida and finished my college in Florida. And where I ended up residing in Florida wasn't, right down the road from one of the biggest comedy clubs or the biggest comedy club in Northeast Florida. And they had a workshop of like how to be an MC or a host of a show. And it was free. And the club was open Tuesday through Saturday. I joined that workshop, started, I guess, learning from some of the current hosts that were there and eventually became a regular. And two years later, I was, you know, working Tuesday through Saturday, a couple of times a month,
sometimes at this club hosting shows. And then, you know, long, longer, long story, longer, um, other comedians that I worked for started to bring me on the road and open for them and bump me up to the middle act. And then, you know, once you get enough material, you can kind of pitch yourself to bookers as a feature actor, a headliner. So, uh, it was the, it was a really long journey to get to have, you know, start headlining venues and whatnot. but I'm glad, and this is, you know, I started pre-internet or pre-social media, I should say, maybe not pre-internet, but pre-social media popular, you know, being popular. So my website was huge. You know, that was a big deal to have a website. Like, wow, you have a URL? Which is why I have Danny Johnson. Yeah. There you go. Here it is. This is it today. Which is why I have the .com, DannyJohnson.com. It's
of rare to have a dot com and uh i've had people want to buy it, which is interesting. Really? How much you can offer for that? I've gotten upwards of upwards of four grand. Wow. But it's been, it's been a good decade since someone's tried to buy it. There's two, there's a semi-famous musician out of England. Um, and then there's, there's a few public speakers all with my name. So, um, like, uh, they're not comedians, but they are, well-known speakers. Well, I mean, with a name like Johnson. There's got to be several Dannys out there. It's funny you say that. I remember I had the hardest time getting with this one particular booker. And finally, I got a hold of them on the phone. And this is after years of emailing or just trying to get in with them. And I go, what? Did I do something? And they go, yeah, I booked you and you didn't show. And I said,
I haven't worked for you ever. And they go, you're Danny Johnson out of whatever city they mentioned. I go, no, I'm in Northeast Florida. They're like, oh my gosh, there's another one of you. I was like, well, that's not me. Why didn't you at least meet with me and find out? So I ended up working for the Booker, but yeah, there was, there was like almost like a bizarro Danny Johnson. Now you just need to do the opposite and get more gigs based on this other Danny Johnson. Yeah, he needs to step up his career. Just answer. I had an email address where this person thought it was their email address, and they kept signing me up for everything. It was very aggravating. I mean, you could do the same thing for the other Danny Johnson. I do that too. I sign up people's email addresses for stuff.
If they wrong me in life, they get on everything. That's your next special. Don't tell me your email. You'll get a bunch of crap. So you did this when you were younger. You went to college, which I'm assuming your mother said, finish your degree, please. Don't just run off and do comedy. What was your degree in? Business management. I went to two years at State University of New York at Farmingdale. And then I finished my bachelor's at University of South Florida in Tampa. And it took me so long. I jokingly refer to my college experience as the decade of excellence. That's very good. Yeah. So it did take you a whole decade or no? No, not… It probably took me… So two years for the Associates in New York and then probably…
three years and a semester for my to finish. Okay. I remember my count because I was away from my parents for the first time. They were still in New York and I was in Florida having a time of my life at this giant college. And I remember finally at one point in my second senior year, the guidance counselor that I meet with each semester was like, look, you got to finish up. you're 47 years old. I don't know how old it was but i was it was like van Wilder. I don't know if you ever seen it. Yeah. Yeah. So I finished up just, she's like, she goes, you can major in like three different things. You've taken so much, so many classes. So you had to make a decision. Yo