Cuban Pilot

Most military comedy trades on cynical barracks humor, but Jose Sarduy approaches his time in uniform with the bewilderment of someone who somehow slipped past security. An Air Force officer and transport pilot who came to Miami as a young child on the Mariel boatlift, he opens by confronting how un-Cuban he looks, joking that audiences expecting a Latino comic get someone who looks like a vampire on Spanish television.

The set moves between flight training and immigrant family life without leaning on shock value. Sarduy talks about being mistaken for a child by a World War II veteran boarding his plane, fielding questions about whether cargo pilots climb outside during mid-air refueling to chat, and earning an expert marksmanship rating because a nearsighted cadet in the adjacent lane kept shooting his target. Back home, the material pivots to realizing as an adult that a mother who threatens misbehavior with soup-or-suppository ultimatums is not standard parenting.

Filmed at the Dry Bar Comedy club in Provo, Utah, and directed by Kelsie Cummings, the 39-minute set was distributed by Comedy Dynamics in July 2020. Sarduy was actively splitting his calendar between Air Force Reserve flight instruction in Texas and headlining clubs and cruise ships. The show went on to become one of the platform’s most-viewed releases the following year.