Comic Henry Cho Cashes In on His Down-Home Tennessee Drawl

Stand-up comedian Henry Cho was born and raised in Knoxville, Tenn. He played high school baseball and dated cheerleaders. Indeed, with his deep, east Tennessee drawl and down-home nature, he is very much the All-American Southern boy.

However, Cho also happens to be a second-generation Korean-American. And when the 30-year-old funny man performs on stage, he’s often faced with an incredulous audience. Most comedy clubgoers just can’t seem to fathom how an Asian-American can talk like that.

“Oh yeah, I have to explain (the accent),” says Cho, who will appear at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach Tuesday through Saturday. “I’ve tried to do my show and not call attention to it. But no way. People just start staring at me.”

Cho’s distinct audio-visual delivery has clearly helped him forge a nationwide identity. He’s appeared on a number of television stand-up comedy and talk shows. Cho also has landed some choice guest roles on sitcoms such as “Designing Women” and “Lenny.” Most recently he appeared as an Elvis Presley impersonator on Fox’s “Nerds III: The New Generation.”

Six years ago Cho was driving a truck and working on a degree in marketing at the University of Tennessee. Then one night he entered a Knoxville comedy contest sponsored by the Showtime cable network. He came in second.

“The guy who owned Funny Bone (a chain of comedy clubs in the Midwest and South) was at that show,” recalls Cho. “I had done zero (stand-up) prior to that. But he hired me anyway, right there on the spot. I mean this was a Monday night and I started working on Wednesday.”

Cho feeds his audiences a handful of jokes about being an Asian-American from Tennessee and then moves on to more general material. He doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as the Asian-American comic with the Southern accent. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t mighty proud of his Tennessee roots.

“If it wasn’t for business, I’d have never left Tennessee,” says Cho, who moved to Los Angeles three years ago. “People out here are pretty nice, but everybody is so into themselves. Back home people bend over backward to help you.”