Pauly Shore didn’t have a traditional upbringing.
The son of Mitzi Shore, who co-founded and managed The Comedy Store in West Hollywood, and comedian Sammy Shore, Pauly said he was basically raised by some of the biggest comedians in the business. He’d often stand in the back of the room, in awe as he watched Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong work the crowds at the iconic club.
“It was like being a kid in a candy shop,” he said during a recent phone interview. “I remember it being dark and red and smelling like Shirley Temples.”
The Shores’ opened the club, along with comedy writer Rudy De Luca, on April 7, 1972. It became known as a place where dozens of comics got their start, including Robin Williams, Jay Leno, Louie Anderson, Andy Kaufman, David Letterman, Jim Carey, Roseanne Barr, Dave Chappelle, and Whitney Cummings. These comics and more were featured in “The Comedy Store,” a five-part documentary series about the history of the club written and directed by comedian and actor Mike Binder, which debuted on Showtime in 2020.
For Shore, the club was his playground. He was just four years old when it opened and recalls his father putting him on the stage in front of a room full of people and handing him a microphone.
“It was like the kid going to work with his parents who own an auto body shop and you grow up crawling around all the cars,” he said. “I was drawn to the comedians. I was fascinated by them. It was always magical and my mom was right there. I’d be sitting on the floor of her office and she’d be doing the line-up and eventually I’d be running around The Store.”
Given the interest surrounding the early days of the club, he wrote and developed a one-man show, “Stick to the Dancing: Funny Stories From My Childhood.” He had just begun to tour with it as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down in-person events in 2020. While he still has a residence in Los Angeles, Shore bought a house in Las Vegas last year; while hunkered down in the desert waiting for things to reopen, he added fresh elements to the show including videos and photos.
He’ll be bringing the revamped version to Southern California venues in the coming weeks including The Lab at the Hollywood Improv April 27; Dynasty Typewriter at The Hayworth in Los Angeles April 28; Brea Improv May 5; and he’s doing three nights at The Comedy Store’s La Jolla club in San Diego May 6-8.
“My childhood was pretty wacky,” he said. “My parents divorced when I was three years old, and mom raised me at The Comedy Store while my dad was on tour with Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand and Sammy Davis Jr. She was developing comedians at the club and I was babysat by them. Bob Dylan was at my little league games because his son, Sam Dylan, was on my team. That’s a weird childhood.”
Shore said the timing is actually perfect for him to be sharing these stories since the venue is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The milestone will also be marked with some yet-to-be-announced programming at the club happening during the Netflix is a Joke Fest April 28-May 8.
Some of the biggest moments in the club’s history that stand out in Shore’s mind the most are the first time he saw comedian and actor Robin Harris perform in the small room at the club. He said he immediately grabbed him after his set and introduced him to his mother, who brought him back as a regular. He also remembers Eddie Murphy randomly showing up for sets in the ’80s with an entourage that pulled up on Sunset Boulevard in nearly a dozen Rolls-Royces.
“That was always a good time and obviously when Richard Pryor showed up it was kinda like Jesus Christ was in the building and everyone was just in awe of him,” he added.
Shore doesn’t currently have a role in running The Comedy Store, but he does events and various projects there often. He said he had no idea that the business his parents founded would go on to and still have such an impact on the world of stand-up comedy.
“I think that’s all God’s work or like when something just takes off like the Beatles or MTV, you just don’t know,” he said. “It’s like something going viral. You don’t plan that. You can put your heart into something, but I think a lot of times it’s just about timing. You could say The Comedy Store went viral, but that was just my mom being the right person at the right time with the right location and the right comics. And she loved her comedians more than anything.”
Despite his parents being the owners, Shore’s first professional stand-up gig wasn’t at The Comedy Store. It was at Alleycat Bistro in Culver City when he was just 17 years old. He told jokes that other comics had written for him and he busted out some pop and lock dance moves he learned from street dancer and Michael Jackson choreographer Suga Pop.
“I did every other club in L.A. besides The Comedy Store,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be like, ‘Oh, there’s Mitzi’s kid again.’ I stayed away from The Comedy Store for two years and then I finally went on at The Store in front of my mom.”
That moment was terrifying, he said.
“There was extra pressure because it’s my mom, but it was also Mitzi Shore, so she wore two masks,” he said.
Back then, he said he and his mother butted heads frequently; by 19, he was out of the house and doing stand-up gigs as often as possible. He was also driving around Los Angeles in his purple Jeep, hitting up auditions for small acting roles on television shows and in feature films, listening to Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time” to psych himself up. Shore famously went on to be an MTV VJ and in the ’90s he starred in films like “Encino Man,” “Son in Law,” “Bio-Dome” and “In the Army Now.”
He’s now done hundreds of television, film and voiceover projects throughout his career, including his latest animated feature, “Pinocchio: A True Story,” which was released VOD on March 22. During the months of the pandemic lockdown, he kept himself entertained and created several different shows on his YouTube channel including karaoke with his band Pauly Shore and The Crustys, a video podcast, “Random Rants,” and a series of fitness videos inspired by fitness guru Richard Simmons.
But doing stand-up will always be his main passion.
“I’m a true stand-up, that’s who I am,” he said. “I was doing stand-up before my acting. It’s not like I was a childhood actor. If you look at my schedule, I’m always touring and doing stand-up. That’s my most comfortable place is when I’m on stage with a microphone with all of these people that are there for me with their hearts and smiles and there’s just all of this love.”
Pauly Shore’s One Man Show “Stick With the Dancing: Stories from my Childhood”
When: 7:30 p.m. April 27
Where: The Lab at Hollywood Improv, 8162 Melrose Ave., Hollywood
Tickets: $10 at improv.com/hollywood
Also: 10 p.m. April 28 at Dynasty Typewriter at The Hayworth, 2511 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angles. $20-$25 at eventbrite.com; 8 p.m. May 5 at Brea Improv, 180 S. Brea Blvd., Brea. $25-$80 at improv.com/brea; 7 and 9:30 p.m. May 6-7 and 7 p.m. May 8 at The Comedy Store, La Jolla. $25 at thecomedystore.com/la-jolla.
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