During our recent phone interview, my first question to Tom Cotter, who will be performing at The Stagecrafters Theater in Chestnut Hill on Friday, Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m., was “Where are you from originally?”
His answer: “My mother’s uterus.”
Is it any wonder that Cotter was the runner-up of the seventh season of “America’a Got Talent” in 2012? And even though he lost to a spectacular dog act, Olate Dogs, Cotter revealed, “I don’t hold a grudge. I still like dogs.” (Cotter had the highest finish of any stand-up comic in the history of AGT.)
Apparently, Cotter inherited his sense of humor from his late father, Dr. Walter Cotter, a World War II veteran who later became a neurosurgeon. “In the operating room, the nurses said he was a tyrant,” Cotter said, “but outside of that he was a funny guy. I once told him that all the guys on our high school wrestling team wanted to get Mohawk haircuts. He said that was fine with him; he just wanted to know where I planned to live after getting the haircut.” (Tom did not get the haircut.)
Years ago, a comedian named Henny Youngman, who appeared often on television, was always introduced as “The King of the One-Liners.” But you might call Tom Cotter the “Prince of the One-Liners” because his stock in trade is very funny, original one-liners. For example:
“Sometimes I go to the airport, and I don’t even have a flight. I’m just there for my free federal feel-up.”
“I am the youngest in my family. Growing up, I was always getting beat up by the two oldest. Mom and Dad.”
“On my 16th birthday, my family tried to surprise me with a car. But they missed.”
“I used to get smacked around by these Green Berets in my neighborhood. Some people call them Girl Scouts. Whatever.”
Cotter is a native of Providence, Rhode Island. He graduated from Denison University in Ohio. He knew he would be a stand-up comedian from a young age, and like so many wannabe comics, his dream was to be on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
“I’d watch ‘The Tonight Show’ and love stand-up comics like Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield and Buddy Hackett,” Cotter said. “I never did make it on to ‘The Tonight Show’ with Johnny Carson, but I did make it on to ‘The Tonight Show’ after Jay Leno took over. That was the best day of the year. I remember hearing on the news in 2005 that Johnny Carson died. I had to do a show right after that, which was really hard because I loved Johnny. I still hold him in such high regard.”
Cotter started his career performing in small clubs in New York and has performed often in comedy clubs such as Helium in Philadelphia and Rivals in Easton. “I’m a big fan of Philly,” he said last week. “I find that audiences on the East Coast and West Coast ‘get it.’ They don’t stare at you like some places in Wyoming, for example.”
Cotter’s other numerous television and radio credits include “Last Comic Standing,” his very own “Comedy Central Presents... Tom Cotter,” “The Howard Stern Show,” “Comics Unleashed,” many appearance on CBS’ “The Late Late Show” and more. He has headlined all of America’s most famous comedy clubs including The Comedy Cellar, The Improv and Caroline’s On Broadway. Cotter also has performed in a wide variety of venues from Alaska to China. He performed often on television in England and won the Seattle International Stand-Up Comedy Competition and Boston Comedy Festival, as The Boston Herald noted, “winning by the largest margin of victory in the history of the event.”
Cotter wrote the 2016 book “Bad Dad: A Guide to Pitiful Parenting,” which is a collection of jokes, gags, one-liners and bad advice for fed-up parents everywhere. “If laughter is the best medicine,” he wrote, “I yearn to be drugged.”
Cotter has been an opening act for boldface names such as Barry Manilow and The Beach Boys. He has played for audiences as large as 20,000. Cotter’s wife, Kerri Louise, is also a stand-up comic. They live in Stony Point, N.Y., and have three adult sons; none is even a sit-down comic. “I’d be thrilled if they became accountants,” Cotter said.
The Stagecrafters Theater is a nonprofit theatrical production company at 8130 Germantown Ave. that has been staging plays for more than 90 years. For more information, visit thestagecrafters.org. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.
