Comedian Steve Treviño has a five-show engagement at the Sandman Comedy Club this month. (Photo by Terry Stewart)
Ever since the days of Henny Youngman — "Take my wife, please" — relationship humor has been a staple of stand-up comedy. Steve Treviño takes it a few steps further. The 43-year-old joke-teller, who bills himself as "America's Favorite Husband," makes home life with wife Renae and their two young children the primary focus of his humor.
"Everything I do is steeped in real life. I don't have to make stuff up," he says, calling from a tour stop in Atlanta. The Mexican-American comic will headline the Sandman Comedy Club for a five-show run Nov. 11-13.
Treviño, a small-town Texas expatriate residing in Los Angeles, has produced family-focused stand-up specials for Showtime, Netflix and Amazon Prime, where his latest, "My Life in Quarantine," examines the downside of downtime. But being homebound has at least given him plenty of time to gather new material, and he launched a podcast last year with his better half, "Steve Treviño & Captain Evil," that feeds off the couple's playful chemistry and even explores more serious topics, such as Renae's miscarriage. "I think that after the coronavirus and the politics we've seen unfold over the past year, we need to laugh more than ever," he says. "I keep saying that we comedians are essential workers. We all need to laugh, we need to escape."
Richmond magazine: You've been on Showtime, Netflix and now Amazon Prime. Are you going for a hat trick?
Steve Treviño: [Laughs] That's what it seems like. But we've really found a home on Amazon Prime. And we've got a new special in the works, and we don't know where that will end up. It's a matter of who's interested and who wants to do it. I own my own product — I film it, record it and try to sell it.
RM: Have the streaming services all been the same to work with?
Treviño: Being Mexican-American, you'd be surprised at the racism that I have to deal with in 2021, especially in Hollywood. Showtime, for example, was very excited about airing me during Cinco de Mayo, and I was like, "What does that mean?" I do comedy in English, and I'm a proud American. Why do I have to be pigeonholed?
RM: Do you encounter racism on stage — hecklers and so on?
Treviño: Not at all. Being from Texas, I didn't feel racism until I moved to Los Angeles. Everything was so segregated. I'd go in, and they'd say, "You can do Taco Tuesdays or Mexican Monday." Why can't I just do comedy?
RM: Ethnic humor is not your schtick anyway. You are based in relationship comedy.
Treviño: I'm a family man. And I talk about my family, my life and the struggles that me and my wife are having. It has nothing to do with race or politics or religion.
RM: But do you ever get in trouble telling jokes about your wife or kids?
Treviño: I have an amazing wife. And she gets it. She's a great sport. I think a lot of my success is because I have a strong wife. I'm a storyteller, and the stories that I tell happen to be about the things that are important to me.
RM: Are a lot of comedians these days doing relationship comedy?
Treviño: There's a few, but Jay Leno said it best: There are no new premises, there are no new ideas, we all live, breathe, read the same things. But what is your perspective?
There was a comedian in Vegas opening for me, and he was doing a bit about him and his wife having a baby. And he asked if it was OK to do it because I also have a bit about having a baby. I told him to go for it, because it was going to be his experience. And it turned out that our two takes on being in the delivery room were totally different — he was more of a shock comic. But here you had two guys telling two different stories about the same thing, and it was fantastic.
RM: Your method of joke-gathering does put a lot of pressure on your family, right? Your wife always has to be funny.
Treviño: Oh, yeah. Sometimes, Renae will be just fantastic, and I'll tell her, "Baby, this is no good for business." I mean, we won't sell any tickets if she doesn't give me something good to write about. She recently wrecked my truck, and I was furious and she was like, "Well, at least you have some new material now."
Steve Treviño will appear at the Sandman Comedy Club on Nov. 11 (7:30 p.m.), Nov. 12 (7 and 9:30 p.m.) and Nov. 13. (7 and 9:30 p.m.). Tickets are $27. sandmancomedyclub.com
