In comedy, there’s always an opportunity to connect

SHULERKING.COM

Shuler King, a Sumter, South Carolina, funeral director by day, is by night a standup comic who landed a spot on the NBC talent competition “America’s Got Talent.”

By day, Shuler King is a funeral director.

His side hustle makes people laugh.

King (birth name Frank Williams), owns a funeral home in Sumter, South Carolina. On June 24, he'll take a shot at comedic gold on "America's Got Talent," a national talent competition on NBC. The Post interviewed King ahead of the broadcast to learn about his professional and standup backgrounds, what makes a successful comedian and who inspired him to become a comic.

CP: Are you nervous? This is a national TV audience.

SK: I'm a little nervous, just a little bit. But I know how things worked out, so I'm actually more excited than anything else.

CP: Comedians and television go together like grits and gravy. It's like it's just always there. Are you looking at this as your opportunity for a big break regardless of what happens on GTA that this is the platform that can get you to another level?

SK: I stay optimistic, you know. And I do believe that the platform actually could bring forth a lot of great opportunities, but I just leave it in God's hands, man, that's what I do. But I do think that being on the show actually, would bring a lot of great opportunities, take me to another level because it opens you up to such a greater audience. It's an international television show.

CP: You have an interesting day job. Talk a little bit about that and how it fits with comedy, or at least comedy the way the Shuler King does it.

SK: I'm a licensed funeral director and embalmer, that's true. I like to call myself the world's most famous funeral director. My family has been in the funeral business since 1945 at Williams Funeral Home in Sumter, South Carolina. My mother, her side of the family, her father also had a funeral home Lewiston Funeral Home in Rock Hill. So, I come from a family of general directors, so that's the total opposite of comic.

CP: In your business, you're dealing with people at the lowest point in their lives. Was that something that in your mind, it's like, you know what? Let's add some levity to it? Or was it  something where you were just the class cut-up, the naturally funny kid, and funeral directing is just your job and a comic is really what you are.

SK: I'm both. I'm blessed to be both a funeral director at heart and a comic at heart, and I'm very happy living in both worlds – being able to serve families at the lowest time, and then being able to serve people from the stage. 

Believe it or not, it can be one and the same. 

CP: Let's say a family comes in. You're making the arrangements for a funeral. Are there opportunities where comedy can help lighten that burden when people are really feeling badly about having to say goodbye to a loved one? Is there a way that you can use that gift of comedy to help lessen their trouble?

SK: I don't try to be funny, like say, 'Hey man, I'm sorry about your mama, but listen to this joke.' I don't do stuff like that. But it's been situations where people recognize me, or been to a show, or something like that, and I've shown up and they go, ‘Hey, man, I recognize you.’ 

This lady passed away, and her son was standing outside, and he was clearly upset. But when I got out of the hearse, he was like, Hey, man, you're Shuler King!' I was like, Yeah. He was like, 'Man, oh, man, I'm happy to see you, man. I've been to one of your shows. Can we take a picture before you pick my mom up? Can we get a picture?' 

And I was like, OK. It was a little awkward, but, you know, I did it.

CP: Talk a little bit about the path that you've taken with comedy. Are you an accidental comic where you just were doing whatever, and somebody says, 'hey, you ought to go on stage with this?' Or was that intentional in terms of this is what I want to do?

SK: I started in April of 2004, when I was like, 19 years old. My friends were always telling me that I was funny, and I never initially wanted to be a comic, but I decided that I was going to do it, and then the opportunity came to me. 

I was working in the music store, and a promoter walked in, and he was promoting the comedy show that he was having on Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, and I started asking him a bunch of questions, and he was like, 'Are you a comedian? And before I could say no, the girl I was working with said yes. I just said, Hey, man, I'm thinking about it and he wrote his number down on the flyer and said, You know what? If you figure out whether you are or not, give me a call and I'll put you on the show. 

CP: Can you explain the process of being a comedian? Do you write your own material? Do you work with the team? Or do you just stand up there and just go for what you know.

SK: I have been able to explore my talent enough to where I can improv. I've been doing it long enough to where you have to be brave enough to try things on stage. So I can do improv, just whatever you know, off the top of the head; got a lot of written materials I can use. You have to be a little versatile on stage. 

CP: Were there comics who inspired you in or gave you that runway, that confidence to say I can do that, or I can do better than that? 

SK: I looked at Bernie Mac, I would study everybody. Eddie Murphy, I love. I would watch Richard Pryor all the time. And it wasn't a fact of me saying I could do better. It was just more so of I was just inspired by what they were doing, not even the jokes. 

It was just more so of me being inspired by their mannerisms, how they approach things on stage, and the confidence that a lot of comedians had. Eddie Murphy, had supreme confidence when he was performing, and  Bernie Mac and you know the way Richard Pryor could control the room. 

CP: What makes a good comic?

SK: Wow, that's a good question. I think what makes a good comic is for one, you got to be funny. Comedy is also subjective, so I would say what makes a good comic, in my opinion, is someone who has a perspective, somebody who has something to actually say, because people can be funny, but they don't have anything to say. They don't have a perspective. I think a good comic is somebody who can bring you into their world, like when somebody can tell you or talk to you about something that you probably don't have much information about like you they can make you laugh about something that you can't even relate to. 

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