Q&A: Anjelah Johnson speaks on comedic career

Once a fellow college student, an Oakland Raider cheerleader, and a MADtv sketch artist, recently married comedienne Anjelah Johnson lit up the stage at Laugh-a-Palooza Monday night. Johnson, currently on an ongoing tour across the country, performed new material that included several of her past experiences as well as sketches of family and friends. Johnson spoke with the Central Florida Future about her road to discovery, her inspirations, and her plans for the future.

Central Florida Future: How are you enjoying your experience at UCF so far?

Anjelah Johnson: So far, the 15 minutes have been great. I just got here, so it's a beautiful campus. It's this own little city. It's crazy. It's like the Land of Oz; once you come through, you don't realize it's your whole city. You don't need to go anywhere. It's pretty big here. But I like it; it's nice, it's new, it's fancy.

CFF: Are you excited to perform?

Johnson: I am! I didn't realize it was such a huge arena and production, so that's pretty exciting that like, oh, I better bring my A game. Not like I wasn't going to.

CFF: How does UCF compare to other venues/campuses you've performed at?

Johnson: It does not. No, the only other places that I've performed that are this big are shows I've done for radio stations where it's like at the Shoreline Amphitheater. I shot my one hour Comedy Central special in Houston at the Verizon Wireless Theater, [which only held] 2,400, so still not comparing.

CFF: Do you prefer performing for a college crowd, or an older audience?

Johnson: My favorite crowd is a mixed crowd. So, if there are people from all different ethnicities there, I love it. Usually it's just when there's one ethnic group there, that's when it's not the best show because you only know about what you know, as opposed to everything I talk about. Because I talk about everybody, and you just can't please everybody. It has to be all mixed, a little bit of everybody mixed in.

CFF: On your MySpace page, you mention having attended some college; where did you go?

Johnson: I went to De Anza College, which I like to call University of Cupertino, which is not a university at all. It's a junior college, and I went for three years [before leaving]. I went to college in Cupertino, Calif., which is right by San Jose, so it's just a drive away

CFF: Were you the class clown in school?

Johnson: Yeah, no. I don't think I was. I didn't realize I was funny until I moved to L.A., and I took a joke writing class, like a stand-up comedy class. And it came naturally to me. That's when I kind of realized I was funny.

CFF: Why did you choose to be a comedian?

Johnson: I don't know; my whole family is funny, so I didn't stand out. I wasn't like, oh, there goes Anjelah being funny again! I love to laugh, so I surround myself with people who make me laugh, and I make them laugh in return. I didn't realize I was different than anybody else. But I'm having fun with it, for sure.

CFF: When did you first start stand-up?

Johnson: I think I've being doing it for six years now. I took the class in 2005, around December. So I'd only been doing comedy for about four months when that nail salon video was recorded. Let me tell you, I had just started doing comedy. I was so brand new to stand-up comedy at that point. It was one of those things where somebody's like, ‘Hey, you want to come and do a 10-minute set for 25 bucks?' And at that time, you were broke and pursuing your dreams; so I went.

CFF: And what happened from there?

Johnson: I did the show, they taped it, and a whole year goes by. Now it's 2007, and this video gets released on the Internet, on YouTube, which is still fairly new at this point. So I remember my mom called me, and she was like, ‘Your cousin Christie got a video sent to her in the email of you.' So I'm thinking, oh, snap, what video are they talking about? And she said, ‘Yeah, you're doing stand-up comedy, the nail salon joke.' It's like, oh yeah, I remember the set I did a year ago for these people that taped it. And within a month it had four million hits, and from four million you went to ten million, and now it's close to thirty or forty million. It's crazy.