George Wallace - Legendary & Whatnot

Let’s get the for­mal­i­ties out of the way. George Wal­lace is per­form­ing 4 standup shows at Cap City Com­e­dy Club April 5 – 6 and I was lucky enough to talk to him about his upcom­ing trip to Austin. He’s ready – he’s been research­ing the lat­est in Austin and Texas that’s news­wor­thy. Wal­lace guar­an­tees one thing about his standup shows: ​“my shows are nev­er predictable.”

Nei­ther is Wallace’s career. 

In under two years, he’d gone from start­ing standup at Catch a Ris­ing Star in New York City in 1977 to writ­ing for The Redd Foxx Vari­ety Hour. So began a col­or­ful career on stages, movie and TV sets. One inter­est­ing fac­toid is that Wal­lace has por­trayed three may­ors – once in Bat­man For­ev­er, again in Lit­tle Nicky, and once again in Hubie Hal­loween. After tak­ing over Las Vegas, start­ing in 2004 with a long-run­ning com­e­dy show last­ing over a decade, he was anoint­ed ​“The New Mr. Vegas”. Wal­lace was named Best Male Standup at the 1995 Amer­i­can Com­e­dy Awards. He even earned a Life­time Achieve­ment Award at the 2013 Soul Train/​Centric Com­e­dy All-Star Awards. With­out a doubt, George Wal­lace is com­e­dy royalty.

This was a short con­ver­sa­tion as Wal­lace had just learned he’d be catch­ing a flight with his long-time friend (they both start­ed at Catch a Ris­ing Star at the same time) Jer­ry Sein­feld. The two (among many oth­ers) unit­ed to cel­e­brate their friend, Kevin Hart, who was receiv­ing the Mark Twain Prize for Amer­i­can Humor at the Kennedy Cen­ter that evening. You can see pho­to­graph­ic evi­dence for your­self that Wal­lace was indeed hang­ing out with his com­e­dy friends that night. 

Wal­lace was eager to learn more about Austin, so we talked about his quest to find BBQ and I sug­gest­ed he call on Joe Rogan to be one of the many high-cal­iber drop-in comics that per­form at Com­e­dy Moth­er­ship. I guess we’ll all have to wait and see if it happens.

As we briefly talked about the many things he’s known for, Wal­lace was very quick to say ​“I’m the most blessed per­son you’ve ever met.” This from some­one who’s part­ly known for ​“yo mama” jokes and wit­ty shoutouts and who joked about ghosts steal­ing his toi­let paper. For the record, he also admit­ted that all he does is lie and ​“make up sh*t”. His abil­i­ty to think quick­ly on his feet (this sounds nicer than lying) is part of the rea­son he feels he’s been able to draw in younger audi­ences (who fre­quent­ly bring their par­ents, cre­at­ing a won­der­ful melt­ing pot of fans).

Wal­lace is not only a standup com­ic, but an author, with two tomes to his name: Laff it Off (w/​a fore­word by Jer­ry Sein­feld), and Bulltwit … and What­not (fore­word by Pat­ton Oswalt). That said, act­ing is top of mind lately. 

This spring, we’ll be able to see Wal­lace along with Lav­erne Cox in the new series Clean Slate. At the fre­quent prod­ding of the late Nor­man Lear, Wal­lace jumped at the oppor­tu­ni­ty to star in the mod­ern day reboot of the clas­sic San­ford & Sons. We can’t wait for this collaboration!

When you have as sto­ried a career as Wal­lace has had, it’s nice to know that he can still take time to stop and smell the ros­es. In the short time we had talk­ing (Kevin Hart, Jer­ry Sein­feld await­ed, after all), Wal­lace fre­quent­ly expressed his grat­i­tude for his impres­sive career. For Wal­lace, ​“when you stop laugh­ing, you stop liv­ing.” We think that’s good advice … and whatnot.

Fol­low George

• Web­site — george​wal​lace​.net
• Twit­ter — @MrGeorgeWallace
  
• Insta­gram — @therealgeorgewallace
• Tik­Tok — @therealgeorgewallace
  
• Youtube — youtube​.com/​@​G​e​o​r​g​e​W​a​l​l​aceTV

George can be seen and heard:

• Cap City Com­e­dy Club — April 5 – 6 (2 shows per night)
• Upcom­ing release: Clean Slate (Net­flix)
• Movies — Bat­man For­ev­er (May­or), Lit­tle Nicky (May­or Ran­dolph), Hubie Hal­loween (May­or Benson)
• Tele­vi­sion — Ten Year Old Tom, His­to­ry of the World, Part II
• Books
  • Laff it Off (fore­word by Jer­ry Seinfeld)
  • Bulltwit … and What­not (fore­word by Pat­ton Oswalt)