Comedian Anthony Rodia talks upcoming comedy show

You don't need a wall, you just need a good price point. So, Trump has it all wrong. $20, this place would have been flooded. $30, you're kind of competing with a case of Corona, and in that case, you're always going to lose. You're watching comedian Anthony Rudia, also known as Wacky Uncle Vinny. He is here today with us on the couch. Hey, welcome, welcome. How are you? So you grew up in Westchester, right? Yes, New Rochelle. So, when you grew up and kind of looked at your family, did you think, this is gold, this is too good, I've got to put this into comedy in some way, shape, or form? Not when I was younger. Not when you were living it, probably? Yeah, I said, this is harsh. My father, you know, my father and my mother, both from Italy. My mother came here a little younger, so her accent went away. My father's accent happened to get worse. I don't know how that happened, but it was like playing charades. You know, my American friends, what did your father just tell you? And I'm like, I don't even know myself, but I know that he's mad and I have to get in the house right now. But as I got older, I got into the comedy thing. It was, I mean, endless material, endless. Right. When did you realize, hey, I'm kind of funny, I could do this? I mean, my mom has videos of me six, seven years old in front of family, you know, making them laugh. And I feel bad for her, because raising a kid like that, and then she always gave me that threat that every mom gives, you know, I wish when you have a kid, they're just like you. Tough, huh? My heart goes out to my mom. Aw. She's a saint. You're really good at social media. And I wonder, these days, so much is on social media. Can you look at that landscape and sort of pull out things that you might think are funny, what folks are talking about? Yeah, I mean, that's why I got back into comedy. I did comedy 15 years ago. I was doing the clubs and the open mics, and it's tough. I mean, I have, you know, huge respect for the guys that did it the old-school way. But then I'm a big numbers guy, so I started pulling up graphs and analytics, and I said, I'm going to get back into comedy, but I'm going to platform off of social media, attack an audience, which I'm familiar with, the Italian audience, and I just went at it. I mean, I think we've been doing it for nine months now. We've got over 80,000, 90,000 following. It took off, huh? Yeah, it's scary, but in a good way. It's pretty exciting. So do you still have Sunday dinners at your house? Do you live by your mom's? No, I live in Long Island. My mother's still in Westchester. It's one of those things where you're 30 minutes away, which is good, and 30 minutes away, which is really good. I have a huge Italian family, so you want to be close but far. But no, we get together. We have a bunch of family parties all the time, barbecues and stuff, especially in the summertime. We have a 4th of July party up at my cousin's house upstate New York, and I remember when my wife first met me, I took her there, dating for like three months, and there's about 140 people. It's kind of a rude awakening. Why didn't you tell me we can bring friends? I go, well, there are no friends here. This is my family. Right. And that's when she had a nervous breakdown. But still married you. Yeah. She definitely still married me. She's got all the patience in the world. Well, we've got a lot of folks around here. I'm sure would enjoy your show, but what would folks expect who maybe haven't seen you? I keep it relatable. I take a lot of time writing my material. I'm writing every day. You might come see me today, and then come see me tomorrow. It might be a totally different hour that you're witnessing. But it's a lot of family. I talk about my wife, talk about my kid. My wife gives me about 15 minutes to rant about her, and then she'll kind of give me the look from the audience. And it's a lot of family-oriented stuff. You know, I talk about growing up in an off-the-boat Italian family where I've realized now it doesn't only resonate with Italians. It resonates, you know, German, Greek, Portuguese. Any family that you were raised off-the-boat in old school, it'll resonate with you. So it's very relatable, very relatable. And my goal, I want your stomach hurting the whole hour from laughing, and thank God I've been able to accomplish that so far. That's great. What's it like being a dad to a 3-1⁄2-year-old little girl? Oh, my daughter's the boss, man. This morning, she says things that I catch on to, like in passing. And I'm like, what? Like my wife was, there's a lot of begging when you have a 3-year-old. You know, you beg her to eat, beg her to sleep, beg her to behave. But my wife was telling her, please finish your waffle. You have gymnastics. Can you please finish your waffle? And she slammed her plate, and she goes, Mom, I'm not eating my waffle until I have my coffee. And I stop, and I'm like, what? And she goes, Gabrielle, you don't drink coffee. And she goes, I drink espresso with Nonna. And I go, well, you need to talk about that. That might be the issue. Well, you could sleep, but it's awesome. That would do it. That's so funny. She's got a huge personality. All right, we want to make sure we get the details out of this show. Sure. Where can we find you? This Saturday, I'm actually at Seymour, Connecticut, at the Strand Theater, 145 Main Street. You can get your tickets on TreehouseComedy.com or RodeaComedy.com. I'll be doing a full hour there with Carrie Karavis, and she'll be opening for me. And it should be a good show, about an hour and a half show. Fantastic. Andy, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for the preview. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Absolutely, guys. Absolutely. All right, stay with us. More CT Style coming up after the break.