Comedian Jack Assadourian Jr. didn’t know what to expect when he booked shows in Armenia. People in his life told him the culture was very old-fashioned compared to the material in his act. They also told him they wouldn’t accept him because he wasn’t fully Armenian and didn’t speak the language.
“They’re not gonna like you, and you’re gonna get arrested,” he recalls people telling him.
Instead of calling it off, he booked his own shows using social media and sold out four of the dates. A month later, he returned, sold out more shows and extended his tour to Beirut.
People told him to be careful, especially with the ongoing wars in the region. Assadourian heard the warnings but continued booking shows abroad.
“We’re gonna keep trying to heal the world through laughter,” he said.
Growing up, Assadourian didn’t even know that side of his identity until his parents, who own the HaHa comedy club in North Hollywood, told him and enrolled him in Armenian school as a teen. At home, his grandma and mother would speak to him in Spanish — as far as he knew, he was just Mexican. Then, he later had to balance three cultures: American, Mexican and Armenian.
“I was just kind of bouncing around, like just being a little bit of everything,” he said. “It was really hard to find out where I came from, who I was, and then as I got older, I kind of understood more and more, and it was just a very fun and different experience, you know, like we’ll be speaking Spanish one day and English one day, Armenian the next day.”
In his special “Mexican Armenian,” out Oct. 1 on Live TV on PS5 and Oct. 15 on YouTube, Assadourian explores how he navigated his multicultural upbringing and how that experience has shaped him as an adult raising multicultural children.
Comedian Jack Assadourian Jr. performs at the HaHa Comedy Club.
(Brian Feinzimer / For The Times)
“A lot of people could relate to what I went through and how it’s going, and I feel like I turn all this negative energy into something positive and I’m teaching future generations that it’s OK to be different, it’s OK to be mixed. We’re one big melting pot in the US.”
Whether he’s performing in Armenia, Mexico City, Paris or London, the comedian knows how to cater his act to the crowd — it’s never the same routine.
People don’t laugh at the cultural references he makes, he said. Instead, the audience is laughing at the details of the story. That’s the part that’s relatable.
“We might do something a certain way, but someone else in another culture will probably do the same thing in their own version,” he said.
When he tells his stories, Assadourian doesn’t hold back. His goal is to shock the audience. He wants them to come back just to see how far he goes with a story, but never with ill intentions.
In the special, he talks about his family, his ex-wife, paying child support and his father. The language he uses to tell stories is always direct, but never with malice. It’s all with love, he said, and no one ever leaves angry.
But he also knows what lines not to cross. When he first performed in Armenia, Assadourian didn’t feel like just because he’s Armenian, he had permission to go harder into certain cultural references. Instead, he played it safe.
After fully embracing his culture, he became proud to say he was half Armenian. Next year, the comedian will return to the country, this time with his entire family.
Comedian Jack Assadourian Jr. defied warnings and went on to sell out shows in Armenia and Beirut, using humor to bridge cultures and “heal the world through laughter” rooted in his Mexican and Armenian heritage.
(Brian Feinzimer / For The Times)
“It just clicked,” Assadourian said.
Growing up, Assadourian would adjust his cultural background, depending on the people he was around.
“For a while, I’m not even lying, when I was a kid, I would just tell people I was Mexican, or I would just tell people, depending on who the crowd was, I would say I’m all Mexican, or I’m Armenian,” he said.
But after multiple trips to Armenia, everything changed. He embraced that side of himself and proudly represented it onstage.
“I’m a combination of everything,” he said. “I’m a hybrid.”
The special will be one of the first to be available on the new Live TV platform on PS5. Anyone with a console can watch it, which enticed the comedian.
“They have tens of millions of devices across the country, so its an amazing opportunity to reach new people,” Assadourian said. “Plus, it’s free with ads, so you never have to pay.”