How to go
Who: James Ervin Berry
Where: Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub, 101 Pine St., Dayton
When: 9 p.m. Friday and 8 and 10:30 p.m. Saturday
Cost: $12 Friday, $15 Saturday
More info: 937-224-JOKE (5653) or www.wileyscomedyclub.com
Artist info: www.teddybearofcomedy.com
Not surprisingly, for a guy who did his first stand-up set at a church banquet, James Ervin Berry is not a filthy comic.
However, the performer known as The Teddy Bear of Comedy — performing at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub today and Saturday — bristles at the term “working clean.” For Berry, it’s simply an outgrowth of his personality and not a conscious marketing decision.
“I have to say, yes my act is clean but generally speaking I don’t work clean,” the Milwaukee native said. “The fact is, as a person I really don’t curse off stage. Some guys are like, ‘I’ve got to work clean,’ and that means they have to clean up this or that. That’s not how I talk anyway, so there’s nothing for me to clean up.”
Berry does tackle adult topics in his act, but never in a raunchy way.
“I can touch on the same topic as other comics but the way I do it is different,” he said. “There are other ways of talking about things without being specific. I talk about sex but I’d rather use innuendo. I don’t have to say anything vulgar but it has the same meaning and it always gets a laugh.”
Berry started billing himself as The Teddy Bear of Comedy last year when he was sitting in Wiley’s, talking with another comedian, who mentioned a club owner described him as a big teddy bear.
“I just started laughing,” Berry said. “This club owner is not a lovey dovey type person and she’d never said teddy bear to me, so it sounded funny. I was sitting in the Wiley’s dining room, just cracking up. There was a pause and then the other comic goes, ‘All the clubs say that about you when I bring your name up.’
“I was telling him before it would be nice to have a moniker that would give people an idea how I probably am on stage,” he added. “I’m like, ‘Dude, that’s it: The Teddy Bear of Comedy, James Ervin Berry.’”
It’s a perfect moniker, especially considering related nicknames have followed Berry around since a seventh grade classmate first dubbed him Bear. As the years progressed, he was also known as Teddy Ruxpin, Bear Trap, J-Bear or simply, Teddy.
“It definitely fits my act because I’m not a political comic,” Berry said. “I’m not a race comic or a worldview comic. My goal as a comedian is to be able to walk into any environment and make everybody laugh.”
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