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Stir Crazy Comedy Club in Glendale celebrates its fourth anniversary this weekend.
To celebrate, the club, located at 6751 N. Sunset Blvd., Suite E-206, inside the Westgate Entertainment District, will host comic Willie Fratto-Farrell who will have four sets this Friday and Saturday, Sept. 10 and 11. Shows begin at both 7 and 9:30 p.m. each night.
Growing up, Fratto-Farrell confesses he wasn’t the class clown.
“I played baseball, basketball, sports,” he states in a Stir Crazy news release. “What I probably was closer to was the guy who would encourage others who were nuts enough to do crazy things, you know, things that would be funny.”
In 1980, he stepped up to the mic to try out his comedy at the Ingersoll Dinner Theater in Des Moines.
“There were 10 comics on the bill and the first five or six were being heckled really bad by one guy,” he stated. “By the time I got up there, it was just like being in Columbus Park. I ripped him a new one and the crowd went wild for me.”
Fratto-Farrell then decided to make stand-up his profession.
He grew up, the youngest of five kids, whose father was organized crime figure Lew Fratto, who at one time worked for Al Capone.
“I didn’t understand exactly what my father was all about,” he stated. “One thing I’ll say is that we never waited in lines anywhere. In my act I’m not ashamed to hit on all nationalities. I’ll do a bit in which the tag line is ‘Get in the trunk.’ I talk about the camp I attended as a kid — La Cosa Nostra.”
Fratto-Farrell has appeared on A&E, Comedy Central, ESPN and was featured on “The Godfathers of Comedy” airing on Showtime.
Also appearing on stage will be comics Brian Kohatsu and Leslie Barton.
