Comedian Daniel Tosh Getting ‘Completely Serious’

Daniel Tosh’s comedy is so biting, you can spot the softies in each audience—they’ll be the ones wincing and twisting.

Tosh may open with the joke: “You know they came out with a blood test to find out whether your child is gay or not?”

He pauses. “The HIV test.”

With this bite comes a lot of flavor. Tosh, who prefers to remain age-less in all aspects of life, has been a self-generating comedy machine since he graduated from the University of Central Florida as a business major. He’s been on “The Late Show,” “The Tonight Show,” “The Jimmy Kimmel Show,” and Comedy Central’s “Premium Blend.” His first CD, “True Stories I Made Up,” was released in November of 2005. His new one-hour special entitled, “Completely Serious,” comes out on Comedy Central on April 29.

He despises the overdone, “why-men-are-different-from-women, why-blacks-are-different-from-whites,” version of humor, and works hard to create an original, racy performance.

“I don’t really have a separate bag of tricks that I can do if I’m in a hole,” Tosh says. “The majority of the time I have great shows.”

Tosh agrees that comedians are sort of like magicians, “minus the creep factor.”

“Trade the creep factor for a handful of STDs,” he adds, after a minute.

Tosh began doing comedy in his home state of Florida. He’s lived in Los Angeles the past eight years. Right now he has a place in Hermosa Beach, which he enjoys for the tiny amounts of time that he’s home.

“I travel the road constantly,” Tosh says. “I do more shows than there are days of the year, always. One of the advantages of traveling a lot [is that] when I’m home, I’m really excited to be home.”

Tosh also gets to hang out with his dog, a Maltese named Simon, “which is about a 16 or 17 on the queer scale,” he jokes.

Not much about Tosh is serious. It’s hard to find a subject he won’t joke about.

For someone who has to perform comedy almost every day of the year, this isn’t surprising.

“A lot of times, I think something’s funny,” Tosh says, “and then I say it and nobody laughs. I’m really a trial-by-ear type of person. I try to come up with things that I don’t think I’ve ever heard, and make them as absurd as possible.”

Once Tosh finds material that works, he doesn’t like to repeat it over and over again. With so much traveling and constant performances, it’s hard to keep switching it up. He pushes his material as far as it can go, without breaking it.

“I think what keeps me fresh on the road is the sheer number of pregnancy scares that I’ve had,” Tosh says. “That keeps me going. Like, I can’t believe I haven’t learned my lesson yet!”

All joking aside, Tosh is motivated by success, just like everyone else. As long as his career is progressing, he remains as contented as he gets. As long as he keeps making more money, and more people are coming to his shows, he’ll keep up with the demand.

“I’m like most people,” Tosh says, “I’m like, ‘Oh, if I can just get to this level, I’ll be happy.’ I’m pretty sure that’s a false goal, and I’ll still be miserable.”

What would make Tosh supremely happy, other than continuing to do stand-up at much-coveted venues, is to have his own half-hour talk show. He’s been interested in writing and starring in television shows for some time now, and is currently writing a show for Fox, which he hopes will get picked up.

“I grew up watching Letterman,” Tosh says, “so I do have a soft spot for him. I [also] love being on the ‘Tonight Show.’ Give me a show after Carson Daly! I don’t need viewers. I just need somebody to allow me to do what I want for thirty minutes.”

That leaves the question of who he’d invite on to the Daniel Tosh show…

“That’s a totally fair question,” Tosh says, “which is probably why I guess I won’t have a late-night show: ‘Ok, we’ll give you one. Who do you want on it?’ And I’m like, ‘Um…I don’t know…whoever has a new shitty show on NBC and I need to plug it?’”

“Maybe the first show I have no guests, and everyone gets to know me a little better,” Tosh continues. “I just want a show that I can be like, this is why I’m doing what I’m doing. What’s airing on television channels makes it a little depressing that I’m not [able to get a show.]”

Other than performing comedy and pushing to land a television show, Tosh claims to have one other main interest: Gambling.

“I like playing cards everywhere,” Tosh says. “Anywhere I can lose, and be really unhappy.”

What may be most surprising about Tosh is that he claims to have never been in a fight in his life.

“It [even] surprises me,” Tosh says. “I’m very insulting to people. I’ve never been socked in the face!”

People seem to avoid confronting Tosh after a show, and so he continues to skate through his career unharmed, while offending pretty much everyone possible.

“Ah, you know, people are a little more confident with emails,” Tosh says. “[I] just have to look at it like, ‘Oh, you’re stupid. I don’t have to explain to you that the only reason you’re offended is because one of my offensive jokes hit close to home, and you can relate to it personally, so that’s the one you’re offended by. All the other horrible, offensive stuff that I said that doesn’t relate to you, you have no problem with.’”

“I just kinda laugh it off,” Tosh continues, “and say, ‘Oh, well I’m sorry, and I will never do that joke again,’ and pray that they see me at my next show, opening with that joke.”

With this type of attitude, one would think Tosh was the class clown in high school. He claims he wasn’t a clown, but merely “comical.”

“I was the guy who could say mean things,” Tosh says. “I was putting people down, to build myself up. And there’s nothing positive that comes out of that, except for a consistent six-figure-a-year living.”

He wasn’t a bully, however. He claims to have been the opposite of a bully: The guy who hates the bully, and shuts them down with words.

“Physically, I’ve always been completely weak,” Tosh says. “Mentally, not as much. I knew bullies, and I didn’t like the feeling that they gave me. Any time I can verbally embarrass them, that’s my goal. I’m definitely owed a good shiner.”

Tosh urges aspiring comedians to go find a local comedy night and perform original material as much as possible.

“Don’t do what I did, which was go to college and waste a ton of time and money,” Tosh says. “[College] served its purpose, which was parental obligations to fulfill. My parents were like, ‘You graduated college, so at least now we feel like we did our job…so when we tell people you do dick jokes for a living, we can say you did graduate college!’”

This full-time comedian remains optimistic for the future, despite his obviously cynical nature.

“I feel 2007 is the year of Daniel Tosh, people,” he says. “It’s gonna be huge!”

For more on Daniel Tosh, visit his official website at DanielTosh.com.