🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.
Caloroga Shark Media. Hi there, I’m Johnny Mac and on Saturdays this summer, I’ve been doing comedy deep dives. Today we’ll take a look at Ralphie May, who was a friend of mine. Two days before he died, Ralphie May won Casino Comedian of the Year at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. He was performing a residency at Harris.
Ralphie was also sick. He was battling pneumonia. He had to cancel a few shows. He went to the ceremony anyway, accepted the award and posted about it on social media with the hashtag no apologies, which was close enough to a personal philosophy for Ralphie May that it functions as his epitaph. Two days later, October sixth, twenty seventeen, he was found dead in his Las Vegas home at forty five years old.
The way Ralphie May died, having just been honored for a career built in casinos and clubs rather than on streaming formers or podcast empires at age forty five is a summary of a career that didn’t get the recognition it deserved when it was happening, and it has gotten even less since had Ralphie been around now with streaming and podcasts, the guy was amazing. Ralphie doesn’t come up in the rotation of names when people talk about the great comedians of his era, and I’m going to talk about those folks for the next few weeks. Let’s start at the beginning. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, raised in Clarksville, Arkansas, and by age sixteen, had been in a car accident serious enough to put him in a coma for ten days and leave him with multiple broken bones. At age seventeen, he won a radio contest that gave him a chance to open for Sam Kennison.
Opening for Sam Kennison at seventeen, Perhaps if you’re younger, you don’t understand the power of Sam Kennison. Sam was one of the most combustible and important comedians of that era, a former preacher who turned his entire religious background into fuel for one of the most ferocious stand up styles anybody had ever seen. And No, Jesus was never married. Guy never had a wife. No one I was never married because no wife would buy this story.
In one hundred years, the disciples will, the believers will, No wife would buy this story. Good luck, good luck with this story. First of all, he leaves on Friday afternoon with twelve other guys. He’s gone. He’s gone for three days, no message, no way to get in touch with her.
He comes home Monday afternoon looking like he has a slapped It seems like he’s partied out. Man, Missus Jesus just waiting. Well, I’m glad you can find your way home, Sada. Where’s your twelve friends? Won’t get a job?
How are the Yeah Disciples? My hash? They’re loser. The first time you saw Sam Kinnison, you were absolutely like Wow. Sam was playing in big rooms and generating controversy.
The comedy world was paying attention, and a seventeen year old kid from Arkansas opened up for him. That time, Sam was the hottest comic in the country. I mean it was like def Leppard coming to town. It was huge, and so I entered the contest. I won the contest.
On the way over, Sam was like, hey, kid, are you nervous. I’m like, no, I’m not nervous. Kid. There’s going to be thirty five hundred people there to night, and nobody paid to see you. That kid, Ralphie made did well enough that Sam referred him to Sam’s home club, the Comedy Workshop in Houston.
But the Comedy Workshop a close by the time Ralphie could get there, so Ralphie wounded up at the Comedy Showcase of Houston club that catered primarily to black audiences. It was at the Comedy Showcase where Ralphie May learned how to perform.
And now that you have that nugget, if you’ve seen Ralphie’s performances, you…
It was a white kid from Arkansas playing a black room, developing timing and crowd work skills in a context that’s more demanding and more direct than most of the rooms where white comedians of his generation were cutting their teeth. He talked about what that did for him. He said, you can’t hide in that room. The crowd tells you immediately and honestly whether something’s working, and the standard for being genuinely funny rather than technically competent was higher and less forgiving. Then in two thousand and three, Last Comic Standing, that’s probably where most people first encountered Ralphie May.
If you don’t remember that show, I hated it. It was NBC’s attempt to do for stand up comedy what American Idol had done for singing, a competition format with a live audience, real comedians, weekly eliminations, the whole thing. I’ll progress for a second. Why I hated it is there were people doing well on that show because they had a good twenty seconds. They had a good minute.
That’s different than having five or eight or an hour. And I was programming the comedy channels that’s serious, and people would walk down the hole and be like, Hey, how come you never play so and so? And I’d be like, because so and so has twenty seconds of material. I was not a fan. Ladies and gentlemen, how about a big round of applause from Houston, Texas for mister Ralphie May.
Hey, what’s up. My name is Rolfey May. I’m from Houston, Texas. I now live in a place called the Hood. I like living in the Hood.
And my resolution this here, because I’m living in the Hood, is it was not to lose weight, because at this point, screw it, you know what. I mean said, this is more than a diet coke fixed. You know what I’m saying. Kids? My thinging this year was to.
Be correct, not politically correct anymore, Okay, because I’m tired of it. You got to think about what group, and it’s too much. It changes all the time. I just want to be correct, Like I don’t say African American, okay, because I don’t say European American for white people. I say black folks, right, what you’re right?
Right? Plus I live in the hood. I ain’t never met black people. Hear any y’all been to Africa, That’s what I thought, Morgan Dame, yacht or someplace. Y’all being like Compton Americans, right, Inglewood swap me to American Vietnamese New Salon American.
Ralphie was an audience favorite. He was funny every week. He was likable. Note had more than twenty seconds. But who won?
Dad Fan? You remember Dad Fan? Right? Okay, come down here. I want to pack joke for you.
We’ll got to do it right now here we’ll go. I’m just gonna speak English. I’m just later her parents. Hey, don’t want to do that. My mom’s like, fang, that’s not funny.
Do you want to make fun of us? You want to find it? You wanna make fun of ancient time? Do you want to be a smock Iley? Do you want the smock check?
And a PA’s a beil. Like mom, chill out? I know to you, I know, chill that fang. Don’t tell me what to Q. I do want to want to che I till now because I want.
To chew I kill you. See this is what I’m saying about that show. Remember dad Fan? Have you heard of dad Fan? In twenty years?
No? Dad Fan? Vietnamese American comedian from San Diego, who’s fine. He has said in interviews since that he was as surprised as anyone that he one. The audience vote didn’t go to Ralphie.
Ralphie thought his weight was a factor that audiences at the voting stage made a calculation about who they wanted to be the face of the show, and the fat guy from Arkansas lost that calculation. Is that right? Is it wrong? Who knows? But Ralphie finished second.
So a random memory of Ralphie that I have was I was watching the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon which I’m actually gonna do a deep dive on that as well. And my father loved that thing, and I remember putting it on late at night Millanite, and on comes Ralphie May, and I can’t believe the clip is actually online. I’m gonna play somewhat for you now. I want you to pay attention here. So this is not a Ralphie May crowd, right, this is whoever’s at the telethon late at night and outwalks this comedian.
So it’s not his people. And if you listen here, you’ll listen to him. This struggles a bit of a word. But like the crowd’s not like hooting and hollering. They’re not really reacting early on here he’s not really getting laughs.
But listen to the laughs as he just fights through it. I can’t believe this clip exists. And here’s Ralphie May on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to laugh. We welcome Ralphie May.
Thank you for having me, and thank you for almost applauding till I got my big ass to the microphone. Appreciate that. Thank you, Thank you everyone watching at home the vampires on the East Coast, thank you for watching the telethon instead of the girls going wild Info Marshall one handed. Appreciate that trying to make the wad a better place. You know what I’m saying.
I’ve had a great week here in Vegas. I had a great time at the South Point Casino. It’s hilarious here. It’s I’m from the South, so for me, the amount of mullets that are here are tremendous. There are a lot.
Oh my gosh. I set up at Dearstown, not in front of the South Point Cassina away for him to come in. I haunt the mullet Ida, I’ll call him. I’m like Mala Mala, Mala, Mala, Mala Mala Nascar, Nascar, Nascar. I sprinkle little crystal math on the ground.
They’ll come right to you. They really well. If you work with them and build up a trust, they’ll take the tobacco right out of your hand. It’s awesome. They are tremendous.
Now about slipping into a bit of a naughty joke there on Labor Day, that’s great. His debut album Just Correct in two thousand and five went platinum. That doesn’t happen. It happened for Richard Pryor and Steve Martin a handful of others, and it happened for Ralphie May in two thousand and five, then Comedy Central specials Griffa a Nation in two thousand and six, Prime Cut in two thousand and seven, Austentatious in two thousand and eight, too Big to Ignore in twenty twelve. Four full hours for Comedy Central in six years.
There were also two Netflix specials, Unruly in twenty fifteen and Imperfectly Yours in twenty sixteen. It was named one of Variety’s ten Comics to Watch in two thousand and eight. We do have to talk about Raffie’s weight, because that is part of the story. At one point he weighed as much as eight hundred pounds. He talked about his body on stage constantly and brilliantly.
The self deprecation was genuine rather than performed. Some think the comedy industry, at its gatekeeping levels makes esthetic judgments about who gets to be taken seriously, who gets the premium booking, who gets talked about at festivals and industry events as the future of comedy. Ralphie may, by any objective measure of audience size and the quality of his output, belonging to those conversations, but never really broke through. His crowd work was extraordinary probably the best of his generation at the specific skill of taking what was going on in the room and turning it into comedy in real time. But crowd work back in those days didn’t make the highlight reels.
I’m telling you, I saw this guy perform live more than once, and every time I saw him, he killed. He was amazing. The casino years are the most misunderstood part of his career. Ralphie May, for roughly the last decade of his life, built his career around casino residencies and theaters markets that the prestige comedy circuit doesn’t prioritize. The casino circuit done right is one of the most demanding and lucrative ways to build a sustainable stand up career.
You’re performing for large rooms multiple nights a week, you’re developing material at a big pace, and you’re reaching an audience that’s not the usual comedy club crowd, which means you’re actually doing harder work in front of rooms than aren’t. Automatically in your corner, you know, somebody goes, hey, here’s two tickets to go see the comedian. They’re not necessarily going to see Ralphie May. They’re seeing a comedian who happens to be Ralphie May and Ralphie was good at it. I knew Ralphie personally.
At one point we were doing some radio shows on Serious and I hung out with him in La I’ve told the story on the main podcast a few times, but I will tell it again here today. I know at some point I was hooking up with them. Maybe you picked me up at the hotel. I don’t really remember. I do remember that we were driving around in his car and we were eventually going to go to the radio studio, and he asked if I minded if we got some food while he got his car detailed, and we did exactly that.
We went and got his car detailed, and then we got Mexican food somewhere, and just like an awesome guy, cool guy to hang out with. I always enjoyed my time with him.
And then every year at Christmas time, he would send me a bottle of dom and a…
I would have played his stuff on the air whether he sent me something or not, but I was appreciated that he appreciated that his stuff was being played, and it was genuine It wasn’t some sort of hey, let me butter up this guy so he plays my stuff for Ralphie. Was not like that at all. It was a genuine thanks after I parted ways with Sirius, just as an example of the kind of guy he was. Now I’ve talked about this before as well. In show business there are people who are you know, your actual friends.
I’ve called out Larry the cable guy many times on this show. He’ll come on here. He doesn’t need to do this show. He’s doing it because we’ve been friends for twenty something years. So when I left Sirious and I started working at Slacker, we wanted to do some stuff with comedians being guest DJs, and I called Ralphie and asked him to do it, and he said sure.
They went over to the studio in Nashville and did it again, just favor for a guy he knew that was definitely a situation where that was gonna help me a lot more than it helped him. But sure, no problem, John, happy to do it for you. That’s what kind of guy Ralphie was. I think of him often and I do miss him. He was a really really good comedian and a really really good guy.
Ralphie may back tomorrow with a normal episode.