A Wall Street Banker Turned to Comedy for Happiness and a Career Change
“I started getting a little bored with the financial world and decided I wanted to get into comedy,” says John Gaudioso, who founded the website The Actors’ Comedian. “To do that, you have to be entertaining, and I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be funny, but I didn’t want to be popular or be on network television,” he says.
John’s passion for comedy is reflected in his website, which is a repository of funny videos, comic interviews with famous actors and funny clips with his funny business partner, Tom Mower (“I’m a big Tom Mower fan,” John says, laughing).
John’s most notable video is the hilarious spoof of the reality show Survivor — with the tag line “Survivor, I’m your idiot.” “I really wanted to do that,” John says. “I thought, ‘Yeah! That would be good.’”
John’s journey into comedy began when he and Tom were hired on a radio talk show in the early 1990s. “The radio producer was a pretty good artist, a little sketch comedy guy and he asked us to do this 30-minute show for him,” John says. “I guess he was just looking for something to get us noticed, or perhaps he wanted to get a comedy act together before he ever had the time or money to hire a big name act. He wasn’t really looking for comedy, but he knew we were funny, or he knew the sketch would work. He just saw the potential of us, and we were willing to work for the paycheque.”
The radio show quickly blew up, getting picked up by a national syndication company and John and Tom had their first television opportunity when they landed a spot on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn on CBS.
The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn
The act