Charles McBee’s Road From Dollar Slices to “Tha God’s Honest Truth” With Charlamagne
Charles McBee is a very lucky man! A very talented man, … but a very lucky man as well, and he not only knows it, he’s the first to admit it ’cause he’s very humble.
He was just chosen to be the head writer of the new Charlamagne Tha God show on Comedy Central called Tha God’s Honest Truth scheduled to debut on Friday Sept. 17th at 10 P.M.
Fot a shy kid coming from Toledo, Ohio who thought he wanted to be an actor, but was too nervous to even go onstage, to a comedy writer heading up a team for Comedy Central it’s basically a dream come true. And he didn’t do it the old fashioned way either.
To hear Charles tell it, “It’s a real honor. I always got respect from other comedians, which is the top honor for me, especially from comedians I look up to personally, but I never went through the list of things and checked off the boxes that some people deem necessary in order to get to where I am. Things that supposedly you’re supposed to do.”
“Like, I never had a late night TV spot, I’m not passed at all the major NY clubs, never been on anybody’s list, and never did JFL, so it’s really an honor to be able to do your own thing, which I often tell comics who might get frustrated from time to time, and feel like they’re not getting what they deserve. If you just do your own thing, just don’t quit, and stay true to who you are, then what’s meant for you is gonna be meant for you, and it’s gonna happen when it’s supposed to happen.”
That is a very Spiritual kind of outlook, and I think this should be inspirational to a lot of people who often feel like they’re struggling and waiting for their big break. Luck has a lot to do with it but you have to have the talent to back it up.
Speaking of big breaks, Charles’ first time on stage was at the old Eastville Comedy Club which is now the downtown version of New York Comedy Club. A comic named Jay Welch who used to do my late night show at The Comic Strip was hosting the show and Charles said he knew so little about the comedy world that he thought that a guy who was hosting an open mic must be very important, and that if he did well that night this guy could help launch his career.
He said that Jay wound up becoming a close friend of his but surprisingly enough, despite the fact of how well he did on that open mic, Jay was not responsible for launching his career! (LOL)
When Charles was still in Toledo, Ohio and had never even set foot on a stage, he made up a story to the students in his acting class that he had been doing stand-up every night and was killing it on stage. One of the faculty members overheard this and invited Charles to perform at a big event. Charles broke down and had to humbly admit that he had been lying, but the teacher insisted he perform in the show anyway, despite the fact that he had never done it before.
The night of the show he was very nervous and strenthened himself with a couple of drinks. It was a variety show and when it was time for the comedy the teacher said she was putting on a professional comedian first to show Charles how it was done and that he should watch the pro and copy him. Charles said that’s when he learned that there were many levels to being considered a “pro” cause the guy was absolutely horrible. No material and no laughs, yet when he came off stage, Charles expected the guy to try and kill himself, but instead the “pro” said, “Well that was fun!” I think we all know and have seen people like that!
Then Charles went on stage and focused on two older women who looked particularly perturbed after seeing the “pro” perform, and Charles made them laugh as well as everyone else and that’s when he felt he had a shot at fulfilling his dream.
His stage fright and nervousness was one of the reasons he left Toledo and came to New York to try his hand at comedy. At home everyone knew him so it was too daunting in case he bombed, but here in NY nobody knew him so he felt it wouldn’t matter as much! It was a sort of freedom.
The first thing he did when he came to NY was to hit all the tourist sites like The Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and Times Square and he says that NY wasn’t overwhelming to him, because he felt like he belonged here.
Now he’s known as one of the best hosts in town and often hosts the main room at Gotham Comedy Club where he and I have hung out many evenings. He always stops off at my table #69 to say hi and what’s up!
I was fascinated to learn how he got into writing for TV because besides writing for Uncommon Sense, he also wrote for VH1’s Hip Hop Honors 2017, the 2020 VMA’s as well as the 2021 Golden Globes. It turns out his lucky break was getting turned down to be on the MTV show Joking Off. He didn’t get accepted but one of the producers approached him and thought he was funny enough to be on their writing team.
At that point he was living in a friend’s daughter’s bedroom (who wasn’t there at the time btw) up in The Bronx and eating dollar slices, so accepting this gig meant more money that he had ever seen in his life up to that time.
When that gig ended he thought his TV writing days were over and he would be going back to dollar slices and open mics when another MTV exec approached him and asked for his number. About a month later he got a call from this exec asking if he might want to write on Charlamagne’s show Uncommon Sense. Charles happened to be a fan so he quickly said “ Heck yeah!”
It was supposed to be just a punch up gig where he’d take the punchlines to another level, and he would also be writing for Desus and Mero, who were on the show, but as luck would have it the week he started one of the regular writers left and instead of them hiring another experienced writer, which is what Charles expected to happen, the producer told Charles he would take the writer’s place and had to write act 2 and 3.
Charles said he didn’t know the terminology or the format of writing for TV so once more he had to humble himself and went to a producer named Kat, and said, “ I don’t know how much you know about me, but this is my first time writing for TV and I don’t know what a lot of these terms mean so if you don’t mind I have to ask you a lot of questions.” And she was so kind that she took him through the process, and he’s still grateful to her for the help she gave him. You see why I say he’s a lucky man? (Rhetorical question!)
When he wrote for the Globes he said you get a lot of network notes. You can’t just do your thing you have to do THEIR thing and follow their rules. He was assigned to the pre-show leading into the main show, and got to write for Jane Lynch who he said was so wonderful to work with. “She was already a comedic actress so she knew how to hit beats, and deliver the lines properly.”
On writing for the VMA’s – “I go in to do a job, I hit my marks, I ask if this is cool, and I don’t go into it like I’m somebody special! I go in to work and do what they need me to do.” #humble
During the pandemic Charles spent 8 months back home in Toledo riding out the storm, where he spent his time making sketches for Tik Tok many of which went viral.
Charles wasn’t at liberty to discuss too many details about the new show except to say that it’s a brand new show and because they’re creating it from scratch it’s evolving every day. What he did share was that it’s all the things that Char, which is what he called Charlamagne, like to talk about on The Breakfast Club, so it’s basically social issues with Char’s own personal spin. And when I asked if it was kind of like a talk show or a variety type show he added, “ Literally anything could happen!” and I didn’t push him further because it’s obvious he was honoring a commitment not to reveal too much.
Make sure to tune in on Friday Sept. 17th at 10 P.M. to see what Charlamagne, Charles and their team created!
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