‘Jo Koy: Comin’ In Hot’ In Honolulu: From The Ghetto To The Getty

It’s not the size of the arena that matters, is it?
Thanks in part to the success of Jo Koy’s first Netflix stand-up special, the comedian sold out 11 shows at Honolulu’s Blaisdell Center Concert Hall, some 23,000 tickets. So Koy returned to Hawaii to film his second Netflix special there, this time in the Blaisdell Center’s arena. Capacity: 8,800.
It’s no Madison Square Garden. But as Koy jokes at length about his lack of length (and yes, he means sexually), he can make up for it with lots of energy, passion and good credit.
There’s even an extended moment late in Jo Koy: Comin’ In Hot, where the 47-year-old Filipino-American (he just turned 48 on June 2) asks his audience repeatedly if a man’s penis size matters. Almost as if he’s unsatisfied at first with the response. Turns out he knew what to expect all along, and flips the shouts of the women in the crowd into a callback for his previous jokes.

The annual Just For Laughs festival and convention for comedians in Montreal last summer named Koy the stand-up of the year, based on how successful his touring act had become. Koy knows what works for him and his audiences.
Whereas most comedians stopped “humping the stool” years ago as a hackneyed or overly aggressive stage technique, Koy remains a proud user and abuser of the otherwise lonely piece of furniture provided for the stand-up comedian. Barely 10 minutes into this hour, he’s pushing himself into the stool to demonstrate why nobody should watch Japanese porn. Later, he’ll return to act out how he attempts to satisfy a woman in bed; he’ll also sit on top, legs outstretched wide.
And he’ll embarrass his teenage son by telling us all about how much they’re alike.
In between all of that, though, Koy has won over the crowd by celebrating the varied cultures of Asians, especially the stereotypes of his own Filipino heritage. At first, he qualifies a bit about telling Asians apart from one another by emphasizing: “It’s by their accents, and only if they have accents!” After detailing the vocal tendencies of Hawaiians, Koreans, Vietnamese and Japanese people, he has more than a bit of fun explaining how similar Filipinos are to Mexicans. And not just because his mother cannot spot the difference. “It’s a lot deeper than Vicks VapoRub!” As Koy teases, in fact, the Philippines, unlike nearby Asian nations, bears more Spanish surnames precisely because the Spanish had settled there (via Mexico!) almost 500 years ago.
And Koy’s humor always comes back to his own family, from how his mother treats him, to how he treats his own son. Koy might not make his son take his lunch to school in a used Cool Whip container, or make him cry snot back into his mouth, or even pass along the secrets to cooking perfect rice to him.

But he’ll share all of that with us. As well as the genetic legacies his son undoubtedly will inherit from him.
Oh, and that shirt jacket Koy wears? The one with the words on the back, FROM THE GHETTO TO THE GETTY, that might remind you (or did me, anyhow) of a jacket Melania Trump wore to visit Mexican refugee camps?
You can’t buy it. Although at some point (and potentially again), you could have purchased a version of it as a windbreaker with Koy’s logo initials on the front. But that’s sold out for now, too.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Jo Koy: Comin' In Hot on Netflix