"A
Comedian has the hardest job in
the world.
His option comes up after every
joke."
He is on the Queen Mary II. He is on You Tube. He is on XM Radio. He is in Las Vegas.
He is "Big Daddy" Jeff Wayne, world traveler, raconteur, and stand-up comedian. Described as having a face borrowed from Fred Flintstone and a brain like Al Bundy, Big Daddy is a pure stand-up comedian. Just him and a microphone. No juggling, no pre-taped music, no preaching, no "where are you from," no anti-comedy (think Pauly Shore), Big Daddy has an act! His comic persona as a man out of sync with the universe; he uses visual and verbal routines, impersonations, ad-libs, and joshing the audience to achieve his one desired response: to make you laugh. So it doesn’t matter if you are one of the 5,000 people in the audience at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles or 35 people in the Spy Cafe in Zurich, Big Daddy is going to make you laugh!
As Big daddy says, "bourbon isn’t the only good thing to come out of kentucky." Bitten by the show business bug at 14, Jeff decided to leave the bluegrass state as soon as possible to become a comedian. First, he went to New York city. Then, to the comedy store on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, joining the likes of Jim Carrey, Roseanne, and Sam Kinison.
Soon, Jeff was headlining Comedy Clubs around the country (and Europe). Appearing as an opening act for people like Sheryl Crow, Sheena Easton, and B.B. King. Also appearing on television: HBO, Showtime, A&E, and Fox, not to mention the BBC and CBC! In 1994, Jeff wrote a one-man show, "Big Daddy’s Barbeque," and made the leap to theater. A popular and critical success ("He is a one-man riot," Variety), the show was made as a pilot for NBC. Since the pilot, Jeff has toured with the show for the last 10 years, performing it over 1000 times.
Besides his writing and performing skills, Big Daddy is often praised for his amazing audience communication. The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Cleveland Plain Dealer and Berlingske Tindende (the USA of Denmark) have all praised his wit and ability to poke fun without being mean-spirited. He has five nationally-released CD’s; in fact he’s the first artist signed by Uproar, the premier comedy recording company.
Jeff has just written and appears in a documentary about cruise ship comedians called "Ship Happens." Directed by Ted Lange (the former Isaac of the Love Boat), the project is now in post-production and is hoped to be ready for the fall film festivals. "Big Daddy" is the divorced father of three, lives in a house full of dogs and plays a bad game of golf. He is a collector of rare show business memorabilia, and is very proud of the fact that Sally Marr (the mother of Lenny Bruce) thought he was funny and came to see him many times, telling him that Lenny would have thought him, Big Daddy, immensely funny.
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