The Comedy World of Kelsey Cook, According to Kelsey Cook

I thought Kelsey Cook was joking in her online bio when she said her parents are an international yo-yo champion and a member of the Foosball Hall of Fame. But she does indeed come from minor sports royalty, even scoring with a series of videos where she hustles unsuspecting Vegas bros in foosball. 

She turned those stories and other life experiences into The Hustler, a stand-up special on YouTube that has more than three million views and counting. This Friday, the special moves to Hulu to find an even wider audience. I recently spoke to Cook about the zen of comedy, foosball and dating other comics.

“My whole life, my parents would stand me on a stool so I’d be tall enough to see the top of the (foosball) table. Then they’d put their hands on my hands and teach me how to shoot it. It’s the reason I exist, which is really sad, but I’m grateful to foosball.”

“Comedy is you competing against yourself. And I feel like that with foosball. Obviously you’re playing against somebody else, but I like sports where if something goes wrong, you don’t have other people to blame. It’s really on you to get better and do your best. So it’s similar to comedy in that way.”

“It’s funny because when you think of a meditative activity, you don’t think of a beer-covered foosball table in the back of a bar. But if you’re playing at a higher level, you can barely blink because the ball is moving so fast. You have to be locked in the entire game.”

“It’s the same with stand-up. You can’t just be like, ‘Hey, guys, can you just do your own thing for a few minutes while I check my phone?’ You’re locked in the whole time.”

“My dad’s really funny. He has a lot of yo-yo tricks that are comedic, and he’ll set them up as a bit. I did a video with him for social media half a year ago. He did a bunch of his tricks on camera, and it went super viral. It got over 6,000,000 views. He’s very funny with it.”

“My plan out of high school — I was going to be a high school math teacher. I got halfway through college with the math major, was really hating it, and I switched to a broadcast production degree, which is essentially video editing.” 

“I had to take a public-speaking class as a requirement, and I kept turning my assignments into comedy routines. My professor pulled me aside after class one day and said, ‘You kind of remind me of Kristen Wiig. And I can just see that you’re enjoying this so much more than most students do. You might want to pursue something with it.’”

“I wasn’t this class clown type. The guy who won class clown in my school was the kid lighting his farts on fire.”

“My first time on stage, I think we have to put the word ‘stage’ in air quotes. That was a real loose definition of a stage, but it was my university’s monthly open mic night in the cafeteria.” 

“It’s truly the worst place to start comedy because you’re interrupting people’s dinner. You’re having lines of students walk in front of you as you’re trying to tell jokes into a microphone for the first time. It was a lot.”

“You’re performing to the sound of clanking silverware. But I brought some friends, and they were laughing. Some other people were laughing. You need to feel some sort of connection, and then you get hooked pretty quickly.”

“I loved Amy Schumer, Demetri Martin, Mike Birbiglia and Brian Regan, but I don’t know that I was influenced by anybody’s style.” 

“I moved to L.A. and had one of those weird, serendipitous experiences. Jim Norton was trying to promote a special that was coming out and he tweeted, ‘Hey, what podcast should I go on?’ And I had a piddly little podcast at the time, nothing big or great. I just thought, ‘He doesn’t know me. He’s not going to do this.’ But he had his business email listed so I sent him an e-mail.

“Got a response. ‘Yeah, sure, I’d love to do your podcast.’ Had him on. And I knew that he had female comics open for him on tour in the past. I know that Amy Schumer had opened for him for a while. I just said, ‘If you ever need somebody, I would love to work with you.’ And he gave me a shot.”

“I opened for him for one weekend and then went back to my day job. The next week I got an email from his manager with the rest of the tour dates for that year. And I cried at my receptionist’s desk because he changed my life. Jim Norton was like my comedy fairy godmother.” 

Cook hosts the Pretend Problems podcast with her partner, comedian Chad Daniels.

“I personally love it, especially because Chad has been doing stand-up longer than me. He’s my favorite comedian. And so we have zero sense of competition between us and our careers, which is pretty crucial for two comics dating. You have to be actively rooting for each other and have no underlying feelings of FOMO if one person gets something and the other doesn’t.” 

“We’re really fortunate that we both feel like each other’s success only helps the other. We just want each other to succeed.” 

“The only time that it can be tough is our schedules. We both have to tour to make money. We’re trying to figure out some ways next year to do tour dates together, which I’m really excited about.” 

“Hulu is now creating their own branch of stand-up comedy, and they have some original specials coming up. They also are licensing a group of specials that have already been released. The Hustler’s been on YouTube for a little over a year now. It will get to continue to live on YouTube, which is great, but now it will be on Hulu as well, which will hopefully reach a whole new audience. That’s super-exciting.”

Check your Hulu listings for The Hustler. You can find tour dates for Cook on her website, kelseycook.com.