Class clown returns When comedian Jo Koy takes the stage tonight at Seattle’s Moore Theatre, it will mark a 20-year journey from his stand-up beginnings in an accounting class at Tacoma’s Henry Foss High School.

The Comedy Central vet and “Chelsea Lately” regular headlines across the country. But the Tacoma native’s beginnings were a lot less glamorous.

“I was the ultimate dork,” Koy said of his time at Foss.

During a phone interview from Southern California last week, Koy described himself as a pimply teen in high school with “Sally Jesse Raphael glasses.” In those days, he was Joe Herbert, class clown. (Jo Koy is the comedian’s stage name.)

One Foss teacher in particular, Kris Cournoyer, was particularly vulnerable to his humor. “I would make her cry” from laughter, Koy said.

Cournoyer, who still teaches accounting at Foss, confirms Koy’s recollections.

“He would get me going, and I couldn’t teach. I couldn’t stop laughing. I’ve never had a kid so funny,” Cournoyer said.

Cournoyer finally made a deal with Koy: No jokes during the class, and she would give him the last five minutes. “She would look at me and say, ‘Go head, Joe – do what you want,’” Koy recalled.

Strongly based on observational humor and impersonations of his family, Koy says he strives to make his act universal in its appeal. “I want everybody to get it,” he said. “It keeps it more original. I’m just telling stories.”

With an emphatic and physical delivery, his routine often includes anecdotes about his mother: how her accent has gotten thicker over the years, her propensity to point with her lips instead of her fingers, and her trash-talking bravado during Wii games.

When Koy was growing up, his mother was active in the Tacoma Filipino community, and she hired him and his sister to sing and dance at events. “That’s where it all started. I was always the funny guy in the family,” he said.

Koy’s interest in stand-up began when he borrowed a neighbor’s tapes of Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin and other comedians. “That’s all I was doing in Tacoma: watching videos of these stand-up greats.”

Shortly after high school and with his parents’ marriage dissolved, Koy’s mother moved the family to Las Vegas to be closer to his ailing grandmother. It was a tough transition, but the move jump-started his comedy career.

“I didn’t have my friends anymore. I came out of my shell,” Koy said.

Underage, he would sneak into comedy clubs to perform. “I would bomb horrendously.”

But he learned. And soon he went from performing in coffeehouses to nightclubs, and eventually running his own comedy club.

“I was the producer, the booker and headliner. I was everything,” he said. “That’s how I started making my money. I did that almost for 10 years.”

Realizing that his career would never grow if he stayed in Las Vegas, Koy moved to Los Angeles.

“I was so scared,” Koy said of his decision to start over at the bottom of the LA comedy scene.

He credits a chance encounter with comedian Ralphie May at Hollywood’s Laugh Factory with opening the Los Angeles comedy door for him. Impressed with Koy’s act, May urged Laugh Factory management to book Koy on a regular basis. Soon, he was performing five nights a week there.

“I owe him everything,” Koy says of May.

But it was an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” in 2005 that Koy says changed his life.

At the time, the struggling comic was working three jobs to make ends meet. Like most stand-ups on “The Tonight Show,” Koy was scheduled to do his act and then the show would immediately go to commercial.

But Koy hit it out of the ballpark that day with a series of jokes about his ethnicity – including what people say to him when they discover he’s Filipino: “Oh you’re Asian. I love orange chicken,” he mimics, calling it an insult, not a compliment. But then he reconsiders: “It is good, though, orange chicken. Oh, it’s delicious!”

The studio audience gave him a standing ovation. “When I saw them standing, I couldn’t believe it,” Koy said. Leno immediately waived Koy over to join him at his desk, and Leno commented after the show that even he didn’t get standing ovations.

“Once I got ‘The Tonight Show,’ everything snowballed,” Koy says. Two days later, he got a call from comedian Carlos Mencia offering him a slot on Mencia’s 2006 tour.

Since then he’s made several appearances on Comedy Central, including a one-hour special last January, “Don’t Make Him Angry,” and has appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Last Call with Carson Daly” and “BET’s Comic View.”

In between his regular appearances on Chelsea Handler’s show on the E! network and gigs around the country (including an upcoming Australian tour), he’s been working on material for another hourlong show.

Tonight’s audience, which will include Cournoyer, will hear some of that material. But they’ll get something extra as well.

“I’m going to poke fun at my time in Tacoma,” Koy said, sounding just a little bit like a mischievous class clown.

Craig Sailor: 253-597-8541

craig.sailor@thenewstribune.com

Jo Koy

When: 8 tonight

Where: The Moore Theatre, 1932 Second Ave., Seattle

Tickets: $24

information: 1-877-784-4849; www.themoore.com; www.jokoy.com