Lately, the media airspace is full of burrowing ear worms featuring the quotes of edgy controversial comedians—the Rogans, the Marons and the Vons. If you’re looking for a more upbeat, less controversial and funnier listening experience, meet comedian Kellen Erskine.
Erskine has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Conan, America’s Got Talent and numerous other national broadcasts, and will be honing his new hour at the intimate Actors’ Theatre on Wednesday, Oct. 22.
And get this, the show is all ages (16+). According to Erskine, who has multiple “clean comedy” specials on DryBar, “My short description of a clean comedy show is this. First of all, I hate the stigma that accompanies the phrase ‘clean comedy,’” Erskine says from the road.
“Clean comedy” is often, quite rightly, dismissed (mostly by other comics) as hack and lame. So, Erskine rarely uses it to describe his comedy. “I don’t do children’s birthday parties. For me personally, it just means not heading into the bedroom with my material, nor dropping any F-bombs—I generally avoid language that’d make my grandma blush (the one on my dad’s side),” Erskine laughs.
Face it. What you think is funny is another person’s cringe. And that is OK. Luckily, the world of comedy is still diverse enough that there are yuks available for everyone.
Clean comedy even has an electronic home at DryBar Comedy. Erskine’s two comedy specials, Negative Comments and Composed, have hundreds of millions of views.
Take the time to listen/watch DryBar’s “Bad Grocery Advice,” by Erskine. It’s three minutes and 54 seconds, packed with precise, well-crafted jokes about things like shopping carts and bike locks. There are setups, punchlines, callbacks—a regular cornucopia of a traditional strain of comedy that sometimes gets obscured by the louder, more boisterous comics.
To say clean comedy is of another era is to discount the major impact of Nate Bargatze. “The Tennessee Kid” had the highest-grossing comedy tour in 2024. He earned $82.2 million from 148 shows, and is self-admittedly a “non-offensive comedian.”
So basically, “clean.” Erskine wears that badge as well.
Onstage, Erskine cuts quite a figure. He’s a throwback to a more casual, and less nervous, Bob Newhart. You can almost see Erskine popping down to the Village Vanguard, in Greenwich Village, in the 1950s, and doing comedy that gets greeted with a ruckus of finger-snapping.
Like all true artists, those who dedicate their lives to their particular craft, Erskine has grown over the years. With the deadline of a new one-hour coming up, Erskine is pushing his personal boundaries onstage. “It’s not so much that I’m going off on weird topics,” Erskine begins, “I’m just being more honest with myself.”
Erskine admits he used to mock comedians that only talked about themselves. He felt it was a lack of creativity and that real comics create something from nothing. “I thought that was what real art was. But it’s silly because I look back at what I was writing at the time, and it’s not like I was on a higher pedestal. And so I feel like I’ve sort of taken the hero’s journey. I’ve returned more competent in both worlds,” Erskine says.
This new adventure of revealing more of himself onstage doesn’t come easy. “I’m trying it out onstage and my batting average is less. There is a Venn diagram of what I think is funny and what the audience thinks is funny,” Erskine says.
It’s like a musician who puts out an album in a different genre. But when you trust the artist, new things are always welcome. You should want your artists to grow. “My daughter asked me a couple of years ago. She’s like, ‘Do you wanna be famous?’ And I was like, ‘No.’ I want to be .5% famous. I just need a few hundred people, in every major city, to know who I am. That’s not asking a lot. You know, eight million people live in Manhattan,” Erskine concludes.
Come support Erskine’s dream of being .5% famous, and in exchange, you get an evening of laughter.
Kellen Erskine performs at 7pm on Oct. 22 at the Actors’ Theatre, 1001 Center St., Santa Cruz. Tickets are $25 on Eventbrite.
