Comedy Factory Reunion Shows

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on November 30th, 2008


John Debella of WMGK and C.F.O. proprietor Clay Heery, AKA Captain Cranky

One show Friday, one show Saturday. Clay Heery (pictured above at right, with Friday night’s emcee John Debella), the former proprietor of the defunct Comedy Factory Outlet produced this weekend’s Comedy Factory Outlet Reunion Shows at a club in Norhteast Philadelphia.


David E. Hardy picks up where he left off many years ago, slaying Friday’s crowd

Performing over the two nights were CFO mainstays David E. Hardy (pictured above onstage during Friday’s show), Maria Merlino, Jim Daly, Nick Pawlow, Norm Klar, and the Male Half of the Staff, along with headliner Chris Rush. Raucous crowds filled the room both nights and it was just like 1987 again.


CFO regulars Maria Merlino and Jim Daly reminisce after Friday’s performance

The Male Half of the Staff brought two thick volumes containing more than 200 photos, many of which were Polaroids from the era. (The Male Half carried one of a handful of Polaroid cameras with him at all times for a two-year period in the early ’80s, snapping instant photographs of many of the folks who populated the Philly comedy scene at the time.) It is the photo albums that Debella and Heery are gazing at in the top photo… not, as some suspect, Heery’s penis.


Norm Klar (“The World’s Greatest Magician”) and ventriloquist Nick Pawlow

A good number of employees showed up for the shows– waitresses, bartenders, crowd wranglers– and a handful of comics sent their regrets that they couldn’t be present for the get-together.


Chris Rush and The Male Half of the Staff after Saturday’s show

Both shows were closed out by the legendary comic Chris Rush. Rush was among the many regular headliners that added to the reputation of the CFO as a consistent purveyor of high-quality, original standup during the city’s golden era of standup comedy.

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