Trailblazing Comic Karin Babbitt Returns to Stand-Up

Ben Lomond resident Karin Babbitt grew up in Hollywood, California, the place her dad and mom Artwork and Dina Babbitt labored as animators. Each Sunday at 9 o’clock, Karin would get very quiet whereas curling up on the lounge sofa—so no one would see her and inform her to go to mattress—and watch The Ed Sullivan Present. Babbitt already preferred comedians like Joan Rivers, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, however on Could 9, 1965, she noticed Richard Pryor’s first TV look—and like that, she was hooked.

“I’ve at all times been humorous,” says Babbitt over meals in Felton. “I’m what’s known as in Yiddish a ‘patsh,’ which implies a slap. So, in case you’re actually humorous, it’s such as you wake folks up. I noticed Richard Pryor do it and I believed, ‘That’s precisely what I’m going to do.’”

However the world’s first actual comedy membership, the Comedy Retailer in L.A.—the place Babbitt would ultimately get her identify painted on the wall, subsequent to Jerry Seinfeld’s—wouldn’t open for one more seven years. And day-to-day life with Hollywood’s well-known Babbitt household was an unlimited shadow to develop up underneath.

Babbitt’s father Artwork Babbitt had been one among Walt Disney’s prime animators; not solely creating the lovably iconic Goofy, but additionally revolutionizing the best way animation was accomplished. Artwork additionally believed in employees’ rights, and fought to unionize the Disney animators in a case that went all the best way to the Supreme Court docket—and gained. That story is explored in depth in a brand new e-book by Jake Friedman known as The Disney Revolt.

“My father was by no means at residence, it was manner after the strike,” says Babbitt. “He was working for United Productions of America, and Artwork Babbitt Movies. He was a mythological creature that arrived when meals was served. Our home, that he designed, was two tales—crazy-ass trendy, very distinctive—and the whole entrance of the home was glass. So you may see the Hollywood skyline, the Goodyear Blimp would fly by our kitchen window. When Santa Claus went down La Brea at Christmas time, we might hear him ho-ho-hoing in our bedrooms. To the left is Mount Baldy, to the appropriate you may see the ocean glimmering and [in 1965] in case you appeared downtown you may see the smoke rising from the riots in Watts,” Babbitt explains.

Babbitt’s mom Dina, who moved to Bonny Doon within the Nineteen Seventies, was an artist and a Holocaust survivor, and—whereas only a footnote in The Disney Revolt—was the topic of quite a few newspaper and journal articles, a 1999 documentary known as Eyewitness and an illustrated story behind X-Males: Magneto with a ahead by Stan Lee.

Amid the hustle and bustle of the Babbitt family, younger Karin started doing what each child rising up in Hollywood did—she took performing classes.

“I took performing lessons as a child at a spot known as College of Judaism,” says Babbitt. “Taking performing lessons is sort of a remedial factor in Hollywood. In most locations, you do Little League to attempt to affect your habits and get staff spirit. In L.A., they put you in youngsters’s theater, and I used to be within the Hollywood Kids’s Theatre. As soon as I received to highschool there was a lot delinquency happening that it made it not possible for me to audition for Music Man as a result of I used to be handed out from acid on the entrance garden.”

Throughout her years on the College of Judaism, Karin was mates with Cathy Warner, who later turned the Harbor Excessive College drama and dance trainer. They took dance classes from influencers like Bella Lewitzky and performing classes from pioneers like Benjamin Zemach. “It was the one place the place I might go and really feel like I used to be being heard,” says Babbitt.

When Babbitt was 12, she was taken to her first Renaissance Faire in Agoura Hills by an artwork trainer, and her life took a flip. “It was the peak of the hippie days, and I used to be taken there and I felt at residence,” Karin remembers.” I’ve at all times been an anglophile and a Queen Elizabeth freak. I received hooked on Ren Faires and began studying about dialects and Shakespeare and issues I wasn’t being taught in class. That’s how I ended up on The Tonight Present.”

In actual fact, Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Present was Babbitt’s first enterprise into stand-up comedy—in entrance of 9 million folks. She had created a personality that she developed throughout her time at Ren Faire known as Wench Penelope, who would come out earlier than the queen’s present and sweep the stage and do an entire riff. What began taking place was extra folks have been coming to see Wench Penelope then would hang around for the queen. Babbitt actually received into the persona of Wench Penelope, rolling in mud earlier than she went on with a beef bone in her hand. It was there she was “found” and given a task on The Tonight Present in a sketch with Carson.

“Besides they cleaned me up and gave me a push-up bra,” Babbitt remembers of her first brush with show-biz sexism.

Highschool proved troubling for Babbitt’s renegade teenager power. Discovering herself getting kicked out of faculty continually for mouthing off to lecturers, it was past her potential to auto-correct. “I might by no means cease with the punchlines,” says Karin. “It’s form of a type of OCD with me. It’s one thing I do to calm down myself. I feel in joke construction.”

Karin began becoming a member of teams just like the College students for a Democratic Society and “completely different commie golf equipment”; she didn’t know something about Trotsky, however she was mad, and looking for one thing that meant one thing to her. Regardless of low grades, Karin was compelled to graduate at 16, as a result of, “they simply needed me to go away.”

Babbitt has a studying incapacity known as Dyscalculia that was undiagnosed on the time; it’s like Dyslexia, however with numbers reversed as an alternative of letters. So after attending faculty at Cal State L.A. for 4 years, she nonetheless couldn’t graduate as a result of she couldn’t cross math. At all times the insurgent, she purchased a category ring anyway, and “after all, it had the unsuitable yr on it,” Babbitt remembers.  

So as to earn some cash, Babbitt began working on the coat examine on the Starwood, a nightclub on the heart of tradition in West Hollywood.

“I’d sleep through the day, and at night time I’d go to a bunch of hooker mates that lived off Sundown, and we’d dangle on the Starwood and drink all night time lengthy and go residence with folks,” Babbitt remembers. Simply 19 years outdated, Babbitt received married—and was deserted by her husband after 90 days.

“After that particular person left me, I used to be in the identical residence, and there have been plenty of holes within the partitions the place I put my fist by, and I might simply not get up and never be excessive. I at all times felt sorry for myself, and questioning why folks didn’t perceive what a prodigy I used to be. I had by no means even accomplished comedy at that time, I simply knew,” says Babbitt.

Though Babbitt was sneaking into the Comedy Retailer and feeling fulfilled basking within the glow of laughter, she was additionally an addict sinking down into her personal morass. It took some trials and plenty of errors, however at age 21, Karin Babbitt received clear. “I attempted three extra occasions to cross the mathematics class in faculty, and the professor ended up giving me a courtesy C, so I might graduate from Cal State L.A.—which, in case you say it quick sufficient, folks assume you mentioned UCLA and are actually impressed,” Babbitt jokes.

There comes a second in a single’s life the place dreaming has to match up with actuality, and on an beginner night time in 1978, Babbitt received onstage on the Comedy Retailer. The proprietor, the legendary Mitzi Shore, occurred to be there and liked her act. “She mentioned, ‘Oh Karen, I’m making you an everyday. Preserve calling on your spots.’ I bear in mind going residence in my beat-up automobile simply screaming, ‘I did it!’ I’d go to work through the day at this little well being retailer after which go to the Comedy Retailer the place I used to be up till 1 or 2:30 within the morning within the Stomach Room,” says Babbitt. The Comedy Retailer had three rooms you may carry out in, and the Stomach Room was the broom closet the place usually solely two folks could be within the viewers.

After 4 years of performing, Babbitt was beginning to make a bit cash so she didn’t must work so many roles through the day. At 5 years, Shore promoted Babbitt to the extra prestigious Authentic Room and Principal Room reveals. “And I turned in a position to survive, barely,” Babbitt says. “In case you received the Principal Room on a weekend, you’d get a lower of the door and have the ability to pay your hire. On the time it was one of the best showcase on the town—for males. Once I was there, on the roster there have been 200 regulars and solely 12 of them have been ladies. I used to be lucky sufficient to be one among them. And there was a a lot prescribed sort of comic that girls have been allowed to be. You wanted to be very self-deprecating, however in case you have been enticing in any manner, the one particular person that may take an opportunity is Mitzi. She liked the actually absurd, enticing ladies who would get onstage and play towards sort and be loony.”

Comedy is tribal, and whereas the opposite feminine comics within the sea of male comedians bonded over drinks and medicines, Babbitt began a 12-step assembly on the Comedy Retailer. Richard Pryor even stopped in a couple of times.

Throughout this time, Shore was producing a TV particular known as Women of the Comedy Retailer and selected Karin to be one of many “ladies.” So Babbitt started the method of understanding her new materials, a few of which was based mostly on her intense childbirth expertise.

“I gave delivery to a critically in poor health baby in 1984,” says Babbitt. “She was within the ICU and I used to be doing comedy, as a result of it’s a must to earn a residing. So I’d go to the Comedy Retailer, and after go straight to Cedar Sinai ICU to be with the child, run residence, crash after which again to the ICU till it was time to go onstage once more.”

In preparation for the TV present, Babbitt was understanding her new materials onstage on the Comedy Retailer, together with a childbirth bit. “And Robin Williams is available in each night time and sits entrance row and watches and talks to me afterwards and tells me how nice the bit is and asks me questions on it and the delivery expertise,” says Babbitt. She says he put a few of her jokes in his hit particular Reside from the Met—with out her permission.

“There’s nothing extra private you may rip off from a girl than her delivery story, particularly with a child within the ICU,” she says.

Women of the Comedy Retailer, launched in 1986, didn’t do a lot for Babbitt’s profession. There was an business bias towards feminine comedians, one that also haunts comedy golf equipment throughout America. “It wasn’t till Brett Butler that there was a beautiful, feminine comic allowed into the circle and given a profession in comedy on TV,” she says. “Folks would point out Rita Rudner, however she was simpering and talked in a baby-talk voice, and smiled and wasn’t a risk. Comedians like Lois Bromfield and I have been very comparable, form of dyke-y. I imply I’ve by no means been interested in a girl, however there’s nothing female about me. I’ve faked it once I needed to, however I used to be at all times simply one of many fellows, and that was not OK on the time.”

Most individuals don’t acknowledge that 90% of being a comic is ready to get onstage. And whereas Babbitt had nice occasions on the Comedy Retailer with mates like Charlie Hill, Johnny Witherspoon, Arsenio Corridor, Jimmy Walker and her shut pal Andrew Cube Clay, there have been too many medicine and an excessive amount of alcohol to be there for longer than her set. “So I didn’t go do all of the socializing after-hours or on weekends,” she says.

After her daughter stabilized sufficient to maneuver, Babbitt relocated to Ben Lomond in 1988 and began throughout within the comedy world. Making an attempt to hustle and get gigs on the SF Punchline and Cobb’s, Babbitt was selling herself by radio, doing reveals with Reside 105’s Alex Bennet and Paul “The Lobster” Wells. However quickly, she started to listen to the identical biases and sexist attitudes she heard in L.A.

“Through the first comedy competitions in San Francisco, I made it to the finals in 1990, and was the one feminine finalist, and thought that may lastly make me a bookable comedian that would get gigs with out having to hang around. And nonetheless, I wasn’t getting the gigs. I might get a function spot now and again, however by no means a headliner set and since I ‘didn’t hang around,’ and that may be interpreted plenty of alternative ways, as a result of it was at all times a male supervisor that was saying it. There’s a glass ceiling, and folks say, ‘We’re grateful to you for paving the best way for us, we’re grateful that you just did all that.’ And I’m glad I could possibly be of service, however I’m not going to get a tattoo that claims ‘no regrets,’ as a result of I’ve regrets. I actually remorse that there was a ceiling. It’s been very painful hitting it time and again,” Babbitt says.

In 1989, after the Loma Prieta earthquake, Babbitt produced Laughquake, an evening of comedy to profit these hit hardest. The profit oversold the Catalyst and was held on the Civic.

In 1992, Babbitt was doing a bit extra TV, getting on A&E and The Rosie O’Donnell Present and “this complete time I nonetheless have this baby who will not be doing nicely,” says Babbitt. “My ass will get so kicked from this glass ceiling and different occasions in my life, I can’t do it anymore. I bear in mind driving out to Tommy T’s in Pleasanton, and the proprietor shakes his head and says, ‘Not a fan, sorry.’ I bear in mind sobbing on the freeway, consuming these chocolate-covered espresso beans to remain awake and having an anxiousness assault at 2am, and realizing life has kicked comedy’s ass for me,” Babbitt says.

Inside a yr—whereas engaged on the cleansing crew at Scotts Valley’s Mission Springs Convention Heart, and consuming plenty of ramen—she had a soul-searching second the place she considered what else she had needed to do in her life moreover stand-up comedy. Babbitt thought, “I’ve at all times needed to be a highschool drama trainer. There’s received to be disenfranchised, screwed up youngsters like me who want some type of place they are often themselves,” she remembers. “And I did that for 20 years.”

Educating initially at San Lorenzo Valley Excessive College after which at Scotts Valley Excessive College, Babbitt constructed a bit comedy membership in her classroom the place the scholars might put their very own names on the wall. Working as a drama and video productions trainer, Karin directed over 50 productions and gained quite a few awards. In 2019, she started working on the Choices for All Movie and Media Studio in Sunnyvale, serving to college students with particular wants learn to make films.

Babbitt is at present engaged on a mission for the Disney Household Museum—the place she has been a visitor lecturer—along with her neurodivergent college students.

And after 20 years, Babbitt not too long ago returned to carry out comedy at Tommy T’s, and the gang went wild. “It feels good to lastly be again onstage and waking folks up once more,” she says.

Karen Babbitt will carry out at Better Function Brewery on Saturday Dec. 3, at 7:30pm. $10.