Rhodes, Tom Rhodes: International Man of Comedy
By Conor Hogan

Tom Rhodes has been around, literally and figuratively. He's been a comic since his senior year in high school, and today he is approaching 40. He's lived in Florida, San Francisco, L.A., and in New York on two separate occasions. Now he's in Amsterdam, living on a street he can't pronounce. Rhodes has played every American city that has a comedy club, and he's toured the globe so many times that when Immigration looks at his passport, they ask for CliffsNotes .

His soft southern drawl is just barely detectable in his meandering stage voice, and his arms swing freely around a body that is constantly in motion. Tom Rhodes has improved a lot as a comedian since he began as a teenager. When he speaks, it's in a mellifluous manner that suggests higher education, but Rhodes is somewhat proud that the last class he attended was in a public high school. He credits his knowledge and passion for learning to a talented group of teachers: "I was poisoned with Kerouac, Muhammad Ali, Gandhi, the Beatles. They did it for me." His humor thrives on information and intelligence. Never settling for jokes about broken toasters or remote controls, Rhodes would rather brood over race and culture.

He's now lopped off his mane in favor of a shorter crop, which when accompanied with a suit makes Rhodes resemble a Wall Street nine-to-fiver. Living comfortably in the Netherlands, Rhodes can look back at the things that were the seeds of his comedy career. He's gone from taking a Greyhound bus to gigs to being flown first class on Virgin. He started off as an opener at hell holes throughout the south and now headlines in Paris and San Francisco. He says that he "never considered doing anything else, ever. And I have no other talent; I'd probably be the dude on highway construction holding the 'Slow' sign."

The Rhodes family is one that has inspired their son on all fronts. Growing up, Tom's father, a Vietnam vet, played Richard Prior and Bob Newhart records constantly, feeding his boy the brilliance of the world's best comedy. His mother would drive him to gigs when he was still in high school, and Rhodes' brother has turned out to be the inspiration for some of his funniest bits. His passion developed throughout his early teens, but was kick-started when he was only 12. Rhodes walked into his first comedy club to see his uncle attempt comedy, and he was pulled onstage before he even got through the door. He was wearing his Washington Redskins jacket and a one-nighter yanked him onstage for an impromptu conversation as if Tom were the team's head coach. He had nothing to say but no reason to go up, and as the waves of laughter rolled over him, young Rhodes was swallowed up in the world of stand-up comedy.

When he started in the mid 1980s there were cut-rate comedy clubs on every corner, and it was in one of those watered-down rooms in Orlando that Rhodes popped his comedic cherry. He was underage, but the owner looked the other way, and the Don Johnson clones that filled the audience every night didn't mind either. At the time, Rhodes wasn't trying to make a name; he was just concerned with improving his craft, despite being surrounded by complete hacks.

"When I put on a comedy album, I studied it. I looked at it as a Holy Mission," he says. He listened to old Lenny Bruce and Richard Prior, and he even got the chance to work with Bill Hicks. But after a couple years passed, the big journey needed to begin, and Rhodes had to hit the roads.

He moved to New York at 20, where he saw the best comics in the world, but too often he also saw the worst. "There's no hack like a New York hack," he complains. "New York has the best comedians, but they also have the absolute worst kind of comedians. You go to some New York clubs, you sit there, you watch four guys in a row mess with the crowd: 'He's from Canada, he's from Cleveland, I'm from wherever.' Tell us a goddamn joke." As much as he loved the idea of New York comedy, nothing was working there for him. He was young, inexperienced and only got by on one-nighters in Long Island and New Jersey. Like a Kerouac character, Tom packed up and moved from New York to San Francisco, a town whose comedic history suited him better.

By the early 1990s he was becoming a standout comic, partially due to a Brillo-esque mop of hair that passed his shoulders. Rhodes' sets drew excitement, and TV shows such as Comic Strip Live and MTV's Half Hour Comedy Hour gave him solid air time. But it was Comedy Central, then a brand-new channel, that showed ultimate faith and gave Rhodes their first ever talent deal. There he hosted Viva Vietnam: A White-Trash Adventure Tour , which Comedy Central billed as a "Bob Hope-less comedy special."   Rhodes cracked wise with the locals and set up a Slip 'n Slide on China Beach. While he tried to entertain, Rhodes was careful not offend Vietnam veterans, especially his own father. At some points, there were no jokes to be made: "You just can't be funny at the Cu Chi tunnels." The special was well-received by critics and veterans alike, and Comedy Central continued to push the young comedian.

But as kind as television had treated him, Rhodes was dealt a bittersweet hand in 1996 by the TV gods. Riding high on the waves of Seinfeld and Home Improvement , TV execs quickly looked for stand-up comedians who could be flourishing follow-ups. It was at the 1995 Montreal Comedy Festival where an NBC talent scout "discovered" Rhodes and set in motion what would become Rhode's own sitcom.

The show was destined for mediocrity from its earliest stages. When it premiered in the fall of '96, Tom's show about a hip young teacher joined a new fall lineup that resembled a faculty lounge. Six other programs were based around teachers in the leading role, not to mention that every network had at least one new comedian pushed to be a Jerry Seinfeld doppelganger.

With the exception of the show's title, Mr. Rhodes , nothing on the program was his own. He wanted to play a public defender; NBC chose his character to be a prep-school teacher. Tom had four good jokes in the show's pilot, and by the time it hit the air, he was strictly an actor. The freedom Rhodes thrived on in comedy clubs was nowhere to be found in Burbank, Ca.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Rhodes lived a short, forgettable life on television. But the real Mr. Rhodes, the one with some personality, the one who's allowed to let the expletives fly, returned to his waiting love, stand up. He left his Hollywood experience in Hollywood and moved back to the Big Apple, where he continued perfecting his life's work.

It came at the suggestion of friend/comedian Greg Proops that Rhodes see how his jokes worked on the other side of the Atlantic. Originally a San Francisco guy, Proops found loads of popularity in London with smart commentary that the British had an easy time warming up to. Trusting his friend, Rhodes ventured over European waters to the city on the Thames and began a European odyssey that has not ended five years later.

Like all new cities, London took a bit of getting used to. Despite the flood of American movies and fast food throughout much of the civilized world, Rhodes couldn't talk about little things like being beaten by his brother with a Hot Wheel track. At places such as London's Comedy Store, Rhodes now has the British crowds pretty much figured out, and they love the Yank for it. "To stand there, murdering in front of a packed audience is up there with the titillation with sex and drugs, possibly even better," Rhodes says. This coming from a guy that lives in Amsterdam.

The reason for the London excursion was to expand his professional horizons, but it ended up being a turning point. His success gave Rhodes the opportunity to venture from country to country, from hemisphere to hemisphere. English-speaking expatriates wanted to laugh, and club owners in Asia and Europe wanted Tom Rhodes to be their comedian. So with some experience under his belt, he was playing clubs in Paris, Tokyo and Bangkok, and it was at a performance at Amsterdam's Toomler that revived "TV Tommy."

A Dutch network, not-so-cleverly named Yorin Television, had been attempting an American-style late-night show, with minimal success. Dutch personalities could not pull off the late-night yakker that Yorin wanted, so the TV execs sought out an American. They saw Rhodes perform in Amsterdam, and within weeks Tom Rhodes had another show, which turned out to be everything his NBC program was not.

Not only was Rhodes the head writer, he was the only writer. He wore a suit and had a monologue at the top of every show, and they took a little pressure off of him by giving him an on-air alias. The show was called Kevin Masters starring Tom Rhodes . Who's Kevin Masters? Who cares? Certainly not Rhodes: "I got to live out my Johnny Carson dream. I had the musical sidekick; I talked about whatever I wanted for four or five minutes at the top of the show. It was great."

The problem with Dutch celebrities is that there aren't many. After a year and a half of interviewing every musician, author and actor in the country, Tom Rhodes had emptied the entertainment pool in Holland. Kevin Masters was facing death, but Yorin Television (think FOX for the Netherlands) wasn't letting go of Rhodes. Yorin Travel was the network's popular travel show, and they wanted Rhodes to be the man he was in Viva Vietnam .

He took the gig, and why wouldn't he? Rhodes gets a trip a month, where he goes to an amazing destination to learn about the culture, teach more than he ever got to with Mr. Rhodes , and even crack some jokes along the way. Although Yorin leaves the exotic, beach-filled locations to the tanned and chiseled correspondents, Tom Rhodes has gotten to see St. Petersburg, Russia, the mountains of Peru and the Champagne region of France. Next he is off to the Dutch Antilles and later Barcelona. Somewhere Carmen Sandiego is crawling with envy.

Before bright lights and cable-TV deals, Rhodes paid dues like every other comic. The road was life for the comedian, and despite the laughter he created onstage, offstage it was a less impressive life. With some anger, Rhodes explains the less than glamorous side of the road: "It sucks your soul to sit in a Holiday Inn in Cincinnati for a week. You should try it sometime. There's absolutely nothing to do. You wait all day for the show, and the show is lackluster, and 'Great, I got 24 hours to wait again.'" He talks about the camaraderie between him and his comic friends such as Dave Attell and Doug Stanhope, who know what it's like to spend all day staring at a hotel clock without a second hand. "You work with these guys, and they almost become like war buddies to you," he deadpans. Rhodes is careful not to complain about, but rather clarify the road.

And he is too optimistic to whine about a situation. When he started, he wanted to play every city in America. After a while on the road, he accomplished that goal and was ready for something new. "After you've seen the St. Louis Arch four times...." He cuts off mid-sentence, already having made his point.

Rhodes is seriously funny, and he is a good comedian, but what seems to be the selling point is the freedom and the power of being a standup. Tom Rhodes gets a microphone while everyone else sits listens. Or as he says, "It's being able to stand flat-footed in America and tell it like it is." He loves the laughter and its purifying qualities, as well as the self-expression that he gets paid to share.