Laugh with us this April Fools’ Day with some Asian American comedy
In need of a laugh? Have a taste of four stand-up specials (and one film) you can watch during JoySauce TV's comedy marathon on Wednesday
In his comedy special "Deported," Russell Peters gets into the immodesty of hospital gowns and the sexual effects of male ADHD.
Still from Russell Peters' "Deported"
Words by Andy Crump
If Asian diasporic identity isn’t a monolith, then it’s reasonable to say that Asian diasporic comedy isn’t, either. It can be cringey, bold, provocative, audacious, and even heartfelt—and funny, of course, though this is perhaps the least important trait to bring up. We’re all adults here, and thus capable of presuming that if comedy should be anything above all else, it’s funny. Because what good is a comic who can’t get laughs out of an audience?
The point is that Asian diasporic comedians encompass a rich spectrum of perspectives and aesthetics, so for this April Fool’s Day, JoySauce is streaming an April Fool's Day comedy marathon via our Amazon channel, as well as on JoySauce TV.
If you want to get a head start on your chuckles, have a look at four comedy specials, plus one special indie film, that comprise the block:
Sierra Katow, Funt
It’s one matter for an Asian American comic to walk on stage and crack wise about their parents in front of a throng, and another for them to do all of that while their parents are in said throng. Don’t call Sierra Katow brave. She’s just doing her job, though at one point in her life, her job seemed like it’d be in tech. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be another Asian computer programmer,” she confides to her audience in Funt’s opening minutes. “That internalized racism cost me millions of dollars.” Self-effacing and self-deprecating at the same time, Katow churns joke after joke out about her upbringing and identity, her older sister’s pregnancy—she’s in attendance, too—and even her own body. Telling a room full of strangers that you can wear a sleep mask like a bra? That’s brave.
Ed Hill, Candy & Smiley
Taking it as a bummer that the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns precluded the original plan for Ed Hill’s first comedy special is natural. The pandemic robbed many people of many experiences—in this case a major professional opportunity for Hill. In retrospect, though, Candy & Smiley, a product of necessity and the outcome of invention, may come to hold greater distinction when the last word is spoken on his career. Rather than a traditional standup special—big stage, bright lights, echoing crowd—Candy & Smiley shares a closer relationship with a one-man show. Hill’s storytelling gains unexpected, and maybe even unintended, intimacy by the winnowed audience, while retaining his humor’s potency. Candy & Smiley certainly isn’t the spotlight Hill had hoped for, but in the end, that works to its advantage.
Russell Peters, Deported
It takes a specific tincture of swagger and geniality to stroll into an auditorium packed with customers paying legal tender to see you, and low key telling them all that they’ve got B.O. Fortunately, Russell Peters possesses that concentration. Comedy Dynamics filmed Peters’ Deported tour at NSCI Stadium in Mumbai, a place Peters acknowledges is not his home—that would be Toronto—but where he nevertheless feels at home, which may explain why he, a constitutionally natural and confident performer, appears so fully at ease on stage in his ancestral land. Maybe that’s what it takes for a comedian to encourage their fans to wear deodorant. Whatever the case, watching Peters command the stage, by far the glitziest among his fellow comics on this list, with his easygoing and big-hearted presence is a joy, whether he’s kibbitzing about hospital gowns’ immodesty or pantomiming the sexual effects of male ADHD.
Hank Chen, I’m Not Supposed to Be Here
I’m Not Supposed to Be Here opens with what could be a scene from a documentary: a man on a motorcycle collides with a car operated by a blithely ignorant driver; the man’s diegetic pained cries are raw enough to make viewers’ blood run cold. Living legend Mel Brooks once equated tragedy with a paper cut, and comedy with a stranger falling into a manhole and dying. Chen’s set here plays with that notion. He’s the motorcyclist in that frankly horrifying CCTV footage prologue, yet after being wheeled out on stage and assisted onto a blue tufted sofa (it’s a “sit-down” rather than “stand-up” special), Chen reclaims the awfulness of his ordeal through earnest hilarity. The accident happened a week prior to I’m Not Supposed to Be Here’s filming. It’s so fresh for Chen, in both body and mind, that the show functions like performance art, with the remains of his bike set a few feet away from his sofa. “I was on that a week ago,” he says, “and then I wasn’t. I was on the road.” There’s residual anger, frustration, and grief in Chen’s work here, but softened up by his charm and honesty, and his determination to make something good out of something so dreadful.
White Rabbit
There are aimless films, and there are films about aimlessness. Daryl Wein’s delightful White Rabbit—not to be confused with Tim McCann’s White Rabbit, which is awful—falls into the second bucket, in which the loosey-goosey structure benefits the story instead of rendering it insufferable. “Story,” in fact, is the key word here. No script credit is given, replaced with a “story by” credit for both Wein and his star, Vivian Bang, who holds White Rabbit’s center with wry, jittery, surprisingly wounded energy as Sophia, a Los Angeles performance artist. Sophia’s primary “performance” is that of someone who has it together, though her approach to life is more akin to throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it sticks. The movie is easygoing and slight, which probably explains why critics broadly passed it over on its initial release in 2018. But it’s moving, amusing, and above all, a terrific showcase for Bang, who is so instrumental to setting the rhythm that the effect of her work feels an awful lot like a comedy special.
Also featured in the April Fool's Day Comedy Marathon: Helen Hong’s Well Hong; Steve Byrne’s The Byrne Identity and The Last Late Night; Kims of Comedy; Jimmy O. Yang’s Good Deal; Subhan Agarwal’s Airport Pigeon; and Margaret Cho’s Psycho.
Published on March 30, 2026
Words by Andy Crump
Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers movies, beer, music, fatherhood, and way too many other subjects for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours: Paste Magazine, Inverse, The New York Times, Hop Culture, Polygon, and Men's Health, plus more. You can follow him on Bluesky and find his collected work at his personal blog. He’s composed of roughly 65 percent craft beer.