Damn That’s Crazy
Hulu · 2025 · 49 min
The CholoFit creator drops the characters for a deeply personal comedy debut.
Frankie Quiñones is best known as the face behind the viral CholoFit workout skits and his scene-stealing work in the sitcom This Fool. For his debut stand-up special, directed by Ali Wong, he sets aside his beloved Creeper persona to perform entirely as himself. He arrives on stage at Portland’s Revolution Hall with a blast of high energy, opening the show with beatboxing and physical crowd work before settling into a set about his chaotic life.\n\nMuch of the set is standard, fast-paced club material. He tracks his history of dating eccentric women, including a zoo keeper and a hippie, and details the high-stakes politics of a family carne asada. He also turns himself into a visual punchline with a highly physical bit enacting how a T-Rex would have sex.\n\nHowever, the hour takes a hard pivot into deeply personal territory in its final third. Quiñones walks the crowd through his pandemic-era struggles with substance abuse, an accidental sex toy addiction, and a stint in rehab. He then goes even further, opening up about childhood sexual abuse and the long road to talking about it with his family. He uses the absurdity of his own rock bottom to bridge the gap between heavy trauma and stand-up comedy, ensuring the crowd stays with him even as the subject matter turns painful.
The set list
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Beatboxing opener
Quiñones opens the set beatboxing for about a minute, contemplating what it would be like if that was the entire special and imagining beatboxing in inappropriate occupations.
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Tough guys at stand-up shows
Quiñones demonstrates how the facial expressions and body language of tough guys seated in the front row betray how much they are secretly enjoying the show.
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Past dating misadventures
Recounting bizarre past relationships, including a hippie poet, a zookeeper who asked for animal noises during sex, and sharing a 7-Eleven buffalo wing Lady and the Tramp style.
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Being 35, broke, and childless
Discussing the cultural privilege of being 35 and single without having gotten anyone pregnant, despite his grandmother joking that he must be gay.
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Pandemic isolation and companionship
A graphic and emotionally revealing narrative about the extreme lengths he went to for companionship while isolated during lockdown, which spurred him to confront his choices and tell the truth to his family.
How it plays
- Tone
- Personal, honest, vulnerable, cathartic, and humorous.
- On stage
- Likeable, visual, and audibly descriptive, placing himself as the butt of the joke in his personal and sexual misadventures.
- Pace
- Engaging and descriptive, transitioning from playful physical and vocal bits into vulnerable, emotional storytelling.
- About
- addiction and sobriety, dating and past relationships, family carne asada politics, pandemic lockdown isolation, Chicano and cholo culture
What the critics said
Praised by critics as an authentic, funny, and deeply personal special that balances hilarious character work and absurd relationship stories with moving vulnerability about addiction and mental health.
In the room: Warm and receptive crowd in Portland, characterized by Quiñones as 'so nice'.
Backstory
Reflecting on his experiences overcoming isolation and substance addiction during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, rehab in Utah, and exploring his Chicano upbringing and family dynamics.
Details
- Released
- Runtime
- 49 min
- Where
- Hulu
- Director
- Ali Wong
- Topics
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