Kidsday meets comedian Sebastian Maniscalco

We got the chance to interview Sebastian Maniscalco, one of the top stand-up comedians at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan earlier this week. He is a busy person with four sold-out shows next week at Madison Square Garden, and his new Netflix series, “Stay Hungry”  which began this week.

We think Sebastian Maniscalco is a hoot. In his acts, he will walk around the stage, talk, joke, make funny faces, make funny voices and more. Most of his material is great for kids our age.

We asked him many questions about his work. He told us that he gets his ideas from everyday life, things that he sees and does. He says the things we are all thinking, but are not funny enough to put into words. He is always thinking about new material. He had some inspirational figures such as comdians Jerry Seinfeld (whom he is now friends with) and Jim Gaffigan. He was funny as a kid, but not the class-clown type. He told us that he was funnier at home, with his family, where he was less insecure. Other than that, he was a shy, quiet, kid.

He got into stand-up watching TV at his cousins’ house in second grade. He started performing at open mic nights at a hotel on his breaks from waiting tables there. He never thought that some day he would be selling out shows in Madison Square Garden. Sebastian wanted to just be a comedian at first, just to make people laugh, but it turned out he got money out of it, and it worked out better than he could even imagine. He also said that the stories he tells in his shows are tweaked to fit into the storyline. He takes some creative license when he is working on material. For example, he tells a story that happened to someone he knows and says it happened to him. He can change up stories just to make people laugh ... it’s his job!

Some ideas that he has for jokes don’t work out and he scraps them. Other times there are hecklers from the audience and he just ignores the booing and moves on. Even worse, some shows his act doesn’t click and no one laughs, even if he’s done this act many times over and it’s been successful before. He said those days of not being so great are essential to your success, even though they aren’t fun. Those performances encourage you to work harder for laughs the next time. He really explained all of his answers in detail and was a pleasure to interview him.  

Interviewing Sebastian was a great opportunity. He is really funny and you should see some of his acts. We recommend the Whole Foods and Uber skits. The “Aren’t You Embarrassed?” show is also good. We hope you find him as hilarious as we do!