Frankie Quiñones rarely breaks a sweat when it comes to being funny, not even during a workout. Fifteen years since the comedian made his YouTube debut with “CholoFit with Creeper,” the L.A. local struck gold in the content game by poking fun at cholo culture as an authentic foo looking to shed light on the culture. Turns out the potential for viral success was as high as his socks. It was the first of many amazing characters for the comedic sketch artist who soon weaved his humor into writing and acting on TV shows like Hulu’s “This Fool” and developing a new vato-esque version “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” called on “Creeper’s Crib: Live From My Grandpa’s Garage” on YoutTube. But at his core — which is still super tight — Quiñones said he’s always been a stand-up comic first.
So it’s not surprising that in “Damn That’s Crazy,” his debut special premiering on Hulu on Friday, Quiñones does all the heavy lifting as himself. And at certain points, it definitely does get heavy. The full hour of material, directed by Ali Wong, takes viewers on a road map of relationship baggage, pandemic-related sex addictions and unresolved family trauma over sexual abuse he endured when he was a kid. Yet still — there’s plenty of laughs along the way. It’s the type of thing that people will certainly label as brave, but only because it succeeds without trying to be. Instead, Quiñones does his best to entertain the crowd and create a communal experience of laughter while being truthful about where he comes from. His jokes tell a story inspired by the pride in his Chicano roots and also find new ways to talk about old demons, making us feel lighter by the end — kinda like a good workout class.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Your CholoFit skits have always had a genius way of explaining Chicano culture in ways that people can laugh at and also learn from. After getting viral notoriety for a character you play, what was it like for you to go on stage as yourself doing stand-up?
Stand-up was my first love, and that was a kind of an interesting thing because YouTube was kind of still new when CholoFit went viral, but the first “Creeper” video I did was in 2010. But CholoFit didn’t go viral until 2017, but I had already been doing stand-up for 10 years when it went viral. So people would show up to shows not knowing what to expect. They didn’t know if I was gonna just do workouts on stage, or just like do a Q&A or something. But they’re like, “Oh, he does stand-up.” So that was kind of cool for me ’cause I had an act ready and I was able to sell tickets. I was actually touring with a buddy of mine, Craig Robinson; I was his host for like six years. And around that time is when things went viral and I started getting TV work and stuff like that. But my first love is the stand-up. That’s why I’m excited to put this special out, for people to see that side of me.
What was it like working with Ali Wong as a director?
She was great. She’s known me since I started. She [said], “Everybody knows you as these online characters or as an actor. I know you as a great stand-up. I think it’s important people see that side of you.” And so we had been loosely talking about doing a special. She had done Sheng Wang’s special, a mutual friend of ours, as the first one she directed. And then she just reached out to me one day, she’s like, “Yo, you want to get serious about this?” And I was like, “Yeah!” And then it just lined up perfectly with Hulu launching their slate of stand-up specials. And obviously I did [the TV show] “This Fool” on Hulu, so there was kind of sort of a built-in audience there. Then we started working together and I was doing some opening sets for her to kind of get the hang of the material I was going to do on the special. I was blessed, because she’s about her business. And in post-production, she was super hands-on. She has such a good eye for things that I wouldn’t even have noticed, you know, say, “No, I think you should trim that; put this right here. This frame looks weird.” So it just kinda tightened up the special. She got it super polished up; it’s just something she’s really good at.
Talk about how the title “Damn That’s Crazy” came about and what you felt you wanted to get across with it.
A lot of homies and family growing up, they kind of loosely use that term for stuff that’s really not that crazy. You know, like, “Hey, you’re doing an interview with Nate? Like, damn that’s crazy.” You know what I’m saying? Wow, Nate’s cool, man. It’s not that great [laughs]. There’s things that I talk about I never thought I would talk about in doing stand-up on this special. So to me, that it really is crazy. So it seemed like such a perfect title for it.
You start the special by playing with the audience and getting people loose by showing off your beatboxing skills. Is that the type of thing you plan to do in your openings or did you just leave it till the moment you hit the stage?
I wanted to let the audience know, “Hey, we’re all kicking it right now.” Because there’s different approaches to stand-up. Some stand-ups go up there like, “I have the mic, I’m on the stage, I do my thing.” For me, when I go in, I go, “Yo, we are all in this together, like I need your energy as much as you need mine, let’s kick it.” I love when I see a new comic I’ve never seen before kill it and then to me, one of my favorite things is when within the first 30 seconds to a minute, if I know who that person is on stage, then I’m like, you got me. You know what I mean? And all they gotta do is give it a little bit of something like, oh, I know who you are and where are you gonna take me? You don’t even have to be from where I’m from or have the same background as me. I’m just like, cool, I get who this person is and now they can take me on whatever ride they want to, and I try to do that as a stand-up myself.
You’ve talked about how your parents were really into comedy growing up. How did they get you into comedy as a kid?
My mom and dad were die-hard stand-up fans. When they were dating, they would go to the Comedy Store, the Improv, the Laugh Factory, all those places. So it was kind of cool they get to see me there now, but stand-up was always on. We would always watch “SNL,” “In Living Color.” We religiously watched “In Living Color” every Sunday. And then there was a show called “Culture Clash” that came on Fox for a while, which was our people. And then they always had stand-ups on. They would let me watch everything, bro. We’re watching Eddie Murphy or George Carlin; Paul Rodriguez was the first dude that looked like me that I saw up there. It was just fascinating to me to see how powerful humor was. Especially when I was younger, they struggled financially a little bit, but we always had love and stuff like that. So it’s cool to see how powerful it was. They would just laugh it off and keep it moving. So I was like, oh, okay, I want to do that. So I would do little performances for them, even in the living room. I got a sprinkler head from my dad’s work truck or pretended it was a mic.
In the special, you highlight your sex toy addiction during the pandemic — the jokes felt like they strayed from the typical angles of jokes from that time period which could otherwise seem dated. Why was it important for you to be vulnerable in exposing some of your sex habits while sheltering in place?
Yeah, man, during the pandemic, I went through something crazy. To your point, I didn’t want the material to feel dated either — obviously, the pandemic was in 2020-2021. But I went through such a crazy time during that time and that material was pretty new, since I just started talking about it. [At the time], I was already a headliner making money. I was getting TV work, so I had money. I wasn’t balling out of control, but I had some disposable income and idle time. I always liked to party a little bit, but I was always chill with it. And then when I had just idle time, and I was just by myself in my condo, it was just a recipe for craziness. A lot of people went through crazy stuff. Alcohol sales went up, drug sales, therapy. All these crazy statistics during that time, and I was one of them, man. I turned into a little party gremlin sheltering in place, you know? Had my little tackle box of this and that.
But there was a silver lining because it forced me to work on a lot of stuff. A lot of the stuff I had suppressed and was taught never to talk about and stuff like that. And I was just like trying to numb everything out because I was forced to just be there with myself. And I kind of lost it a little bit. But I think it was important that I went through that stuff to get where I’m at right now. But having to just be with myself and not being able to handle it, it’s no secret that a lot of us comedians, we got [issues]. So it hit me hard during the pandemic. It put all that stuff on steroids and it forced me to deal with it. It was either that or I’m gonna lose everything.
So much of your comedy is about translating your culture to other people, but then I feel like toward the end of the special you really kind of do the opposite by helping your parents understand things like going to therapy to deal with issues that are not normally talked about in Latin cultures. What was that like, bridging the gap between humor and trauma while making it funny and relatable?
Yeah, I didn’t want it to feel to like I’m shoving a message down your throat or whatever. I wanted to talk about it organically, but it was something that it saved me, like just opening up about that stuff, because growing up, the therapy and stuff like that, it just wasn’t even on the table. And so, my sister, who is like the heart of the family, she was the first one to go to therapy and it created these waves in my family. And now it’s grown to a point where we got multiple cousins going. Because you’re taught to think, “Nah, you don’t talk about that.” ’Cause then you look weak or you look a certain way, especially men in our community, you don’t talk about.
Then it came to a point where not talking about [experiencing a sexual assault as a kid] was destroying me. It was going to kill me. As soon as I opened up about that, got educated on that stuff … I was searching for help. Got to a point where I humbled myself and I was like, yo, I need help. I need to talk to somebody … I was like, “Why wouldn’t you want to do that?” Just to be machismo? Like, “No, I’m not going to talk about that!” But hey, I have all these issues, but whatever. Why would you want to live your life like that?
I think it’s important because it’s so taboo in our community to talk about this stuff. And so I just wanted to say it and just be like, “Yo, this is what me and my family went through. You know, this is where I’m at.” Now I always get messages or always get people coming to me [after shows] saying, “Hey, man, that happened to me too … thanks for saying that.” Sometimes big, tough-ass foos … they got to go whisper about it, like, “Hey man, that happened me too.”
What are some other ways that you look forward to shedding more light on Chicano culture in the future following this special?
When you’re trying to grow in your career, then I do what I do. These are my characters, this is my voice. You sit across from people that, you know they’re from wherever and they moved to L.A. in this career. You’re trying to sell them TV shows. I’ve straight-up been told the words, “You’re too specific, this doesn’t work here.” People thinking they’re gaming me up or trying to share industry knowledge with me. Like, “Yo, this is too specific, it’s not gonna work.” The moments of discouragement are so heavy in this industry. And I just was like, “Nah, man, nah, I think people will get it.” And as the years went on, they did. People from all different backgrounds; I go to other parts of the country. I love it when I see a group of people you wouldn’t expect, like a group of old white ladies or something [in the crowd]. “Oh, we couldn’t wait to come here, honey.”
In the end, funny is funny, you know? It doesn’t matter where it comes from. But I am proud to rep my stuff and then you have to deal with even our own community. Especially when CholoFit went viral, sometimes you get backlash and, “Oh, that’s a negative light and da-da-da,” but it’s like, bro, Creeper’s an extension of my father, you know what I’m saying? Like, my godfather was president of a car club for over 30 years. I was always around the positive side of the culture. That’s the steelo though, I mean, that’s what we’re doing. It doesn’t always have to be looked in a negative way, you know? It’s a whole culture of people. That’s how we grew up, you know? I’m proud to represent that, you know what I mean? And my experience, the Chicano experience — my mom’s native, too, so I got a crazy mix. I’m just like all this culture and colors and stuff. And so I’m doing my thing, man.
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