Cambridge’s Ding Ho Alumni Celebrate a Landmark Forty Years

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The comedy community may have lost Barry Crimmins in 2018, but 2020 gave him one hell of a birthday week.

On June 30th, the City of Cambridge officially dedicated Crimmins Square on Springfield Street—where the now legendary Ding Ho restaurant once stood. It was at the Ding Ho where Crimmins started a comedy tradition that developed the talents of comedians like Bobcat Goldthwait, Lenny Clarke, Paula Poundstone, Denis Leary, Tom Kenny, Don Gavin…the list goes on and on.

That Friday, July 3rd, the celebration of Barry continued on Zoom for the Ding Ho’s 40th anniversary celebration. Undaunted by the prospect of moving the ordinarily live event to an online space, host Jimmy Tingle triumphantly declared, “Zoom is not gonna stop us from doing the 40th anniversary show!” The marathon event (starting at 7:30, it hit its curtain call after midnight; Tom Kenny called it “the Avengers: Endgame of Zoom calls) was a collection of interviews with over thirty comedians who attribute their success to the Ding Ho, elegantly interspersed with archival sets from these comics at prior anniversary celebrations, on late night shows, and at clubs around the country.

As each comedian came on to chat with Tingle, a clear and consistent picture of Crimmins emerged: while gruff in his demeanor, he cared deeply about developing the talent of the comics that passed through the club. Jack Gallagher called him “a big gruff marshmallow,” while comic/magician Mike Bent remembered, “Barry wanted everyone to find their linchpin, something that made them stand out.” He went on to say, echoing the many other comics who spoke warmly about the man of honor, “people have really warm memories about the space he created.”

In addition to celebrating Barry and the comedic fraternity he created, the anniversary show served as a fundraiser for Barry’s widow Helen Crimmins. Currently fighting cancer herself, Helen appeared at the top of the show to share the story of how she met Barry, and offered an additional window into the sweetness that lay beneath his often gruff exterior. As she chatted with Tingle before the cavalcade of friends and comics, he noted, “we never saw him happier than when he was with you.”

And that happiness shone through with every comic who joined the call, not just happy to celebrate Barry but also to celebrate a time in their lives when their art was developing, and how warmly it was encouraged by their friends and the founder of this experimental space. Lenny Clarke called it “the greatest time of my life,” and it was clear as his contemporaries streamed through that they felt the same. Tony V likened it to the Star Wars cantina: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” It was moving to see so many people who, forty years on, found themselves in that hive and went on to spark laughter all over the world.

To learn more about Barry and the Ding Ho, you can watch the Bobcat Goldthwait-directed documentary on his life, Call Me Lucky, now on Amazon Prime; you can also watch the Fran Solomita directed documentary on the Ding Ho, When Stand Up Stood Out, on YouTube.

To donate to Helen Crimmins’ continuing fight with cancer, head to her website or donate via PayPal.

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Amma Marfo

Amma Marfo is a writer, speaker, and podcaster based in Boston, MA. Her writing has appeared in Femsplain, The Good Men Project, Pacific Standard, and Talking Points Memo. Chances are good that as you're reading this, she's somewhere laughing.
Amma Marfo

Amma Marfo

Amma Marfo is a writer, speaker, and podcaster based in Boston, MA. Her writing has appeared in Femsplain, The Good Men Project, Pacific Standard, and Talking Points Memo. Chances are good that as you're reading this, she's somewhere laughing.