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Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy

Bobby Slayton

An abrasive club veteran who treats the audience like a hostile witness.

4 specials · 1990–1998

Start with One Night Stand, the breakout (1990 · HBO)

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Bobby Slayton paces the stage like he is already mad about the next thing he is going to say. His voice is a permanent, gravelly rasp, sounding like it was sanded down by decades of shouting over club noise. He grips the mic stand and fires off complaints without waiting for the audience to get on board. When a premise pulls a groan, he does not backtrack. He doubles down, attacking the crowd for being too soft to handle the punchline.

Specials

On stage

He belongs to a vanishing era of the American comedy club: the working headliner who builds an entire act around being abrasive. Long before standups made a talking point out of offended audiences, he marketed his sets as hostile territory. He operates as a direct link back to the loud, combative San Francisco boom of the 1980s. Other comics watch him to see how a veteran physically controls a difficult room.

Slayton leans into long, escalating rants about his marriage, his Jewish background, and the daily irritations of whatever city he is playing. He uses volume and pacing to push a room into laughing. The limitation of this approach is that it only has one gear. If a crowd is not in the mood to be yelled at, the hour becomes an endurance test. But when the room matches his energy, he takes over the club simply by talking harder and faster than anyone else.

He grew up in New York but forged his timing in San Francisco. That aggressive delivery made him a natural fit for mobsters and cynics in film, leading to parts in Get Shorty and keeping him in steady rotation on morning radio.

Turning points

  1. Portrayal of Joey Bishop in The Rat Pack

    Portrayed comic Joey Bishop alongside Ray Liotta and Joe Mantegna in the critically acclaimed film The Rat Pack.

  2. –

    Las Vegas Showroom Headlining Residency

    Anchored his own Vegas showroom residency, performing five nights a week at the Hooters Casino with rotating guest comics.

At a glance

Born
, Scarsdale, New York
On stage
since 1977
Style
blue comedy, insult, storytelling, observational
Breakout
One Night Stand
Topics
Elsewhere
Website, Wikipedia

Fans also like

  • Sam Kinison

    Both comics share an intense, aggressive onstage delivery centered on loud complaining, insult-heavy riffs, and personal storytelling.

    Photo: The World Famous Comedy Store / CC-BY-SA-2.0

  • Dana Carvey

    Both comedians came up together performing across the early comedy club circuit.

    Source

  • Robin Williams

    Both were contemporaries emerging out of the same comedy club scene.

    Photo: Eva Rinaldi / CC-BY-SA-2.0

Also on screen

Ed Wood TV Show Host
Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man Vile Kyle's bodyguard (voice)
Get Shorty Dick Allen
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist Bobby (voice)
The Rat Pack Joey Bishop

A clip to start with

Bobby Slayton- The Laugh Factory

6 min · 94K views · on jenaly Sherr