One man, one interview with Pablo Francisco

Pablo Francisco has been doing stand-up since he was 17 when he entered his first comedy contest in Tucson, Arizona. His comedy has been readily available through the internet with recent remakes of his “preview man” voice jokes. Francisco encourages the remakes and embraces his internet fame saying, “I want them to do more. More of the Chinese animation is hilarious with the preview jokes”.

Francisco wants to do this forever. He states “I will find anywhere to do this; I will play coffee houses, churches, anywhere”. Even though he is willing and able to play those locations, he has been featured everywhere from Mad TV to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and recently at the Houston Improv, where he sat down with Trashwire.

Wil: Who were some of your early influences?
Pablo: Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, and Benny Hill who is an English comedian, go to any video store and rent Benny Hill.

Wil: So having your DVD on the internet is so you can hopefully influence millions?
Pablo: Umm, it’s just cause they have it on there, because we always change up the material a little bit. There is nothing you can do right now, you can get paid for and get letter of assists and stuff like that. We just let it rock and roll, if it’s on the internet it’s on the internet, there is nothing I can do but there is always little extras that people can’t see.

Wil: How did your parents take news about your career decision of being a comedian?
Pablo: They didn’t too well, they thought I was dealing drugs and that I was hanging out going crazy. But um, other than that, they enjoy it now and they know there is a business in it. They are really positive now but they weren’t in the beginning, they wanted me to go to school to be a film director. It just didn’t work out; I just got caught up into the lifestyle of comedy.

Wil: In the beginning there were more Latino Jokes in your act. Now I think your show is Universal. Do you feel your comedy has evolved?
Pablo: Oh yeah! Look I can do Eskimos; I can do politicians, so it really doesn’t matter. I am happy where I am at. So it evolves sometimes.

Wil: What is your favorite celebrity impression?
Pablo: Movie previews guy, [in character] Are you ready? This summer, one man! He is really easy, I met him, he is really nice, and we hang out once in a while. He was on Frank TV with me, if you youtube “Frank TV Pablo”, you can see all three of us doing the movie preview voice.

Wil: How did the impressions come about, I read that you beat boxed when you were younger?
Pablo: I beat boxed a little bit. I was nine years old, my brother had a tape recorder and I would take it to school. Messing around with my friend’s they would ask “how do you do a heartbeat” and I would just do it. I would say about third grade, nine years old and up, I had help with a tape recorder until it got lost somewhere. I would say that’s when it all started. Sometimes I had other friends that could do voices, and they would teach me how to do it.

Wil: Do you still have your old tapes?
Pablo: I do have an old tape and I played in my kitchen for my friend, it was back when I was in third grade. It actually sounded kind of cheesy.

Wil: You wrote a Myspace Blog about your sweaty DVD. Did you realize that after the shoot or while you were performing (That you were sweating during the whole performance)?
Pablo: Yeah, I did not know I was sweating that much. We did two shows back to back. Each show was an hour and a half. They spliced the show together, so you will see me dry and all of a sudden I turn really sweaty and I’m like, “Oh, God!” I don’t like it to much when I see performers sweating like crazy. I think I was wearing a black shirt so it soaked in right, but during the show you see me sweat and I was having a good time and of course the DVD is really funny. They showed some close ups and the drops, blah!

Wil: Why is 30 the magic number for comedians to get their breaks and become professionals?
Pablo: It’s a good starting point because they got a brother helping them out and they party together and they get hos together. Yeah thirty is a good point because a bunch of comedians go through divorces and they go through a lot of their relationship problems in their twenties. They get out and they say, “I wanna be a comic now”. So thirty is a good time because they have gone through the hardships in their twenties.

Wil: Have you made anyone laugh to death?
Pablo: I had someone laugh hard enough till their drink came out of their nose. That was kind of a nuisance. George Lopez made someone laugh so hard they died. They died in the showroom that was kind of crazy.