Cliff Cash has toiled away in the shadows of obscurity for 14 years, resisting the conventional path to standup success (moving to NYC or LA OR going viral).
Instead, he has simply enjoyed the ride, touring up to 10½ months a year some years, often living out of outfitted adventure rigs for months at a time and camping and hiking in between gigs.
He visited 45 national parks in a station wagon he built to live in. After more than a decade of hoping someone would notice his humor and offer him a home, he decided to take matters into his own hands and finally embraced social media. He got serious about building his brand, recorded a dynamite special “The Long Road” with the talented team at Lighthouse Films, and that was it.
The special caught fire, and Cliff’s YouTube subscribers skyrocketed from 280 to 240,000 in less than six months, with the special garnering over 30 million views across clips and platforms.
Now that he has made a name for himself, he figured the algorithm needed some feeding, so here’s his new comedy special, THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS.
Much like The Long Road, it’s a politically charged hour (and 39 minutes) that punches up from start to finish.
https://youtu.be/lcwwZSh2mnE?si=44NTievShwEJznwJ
Cliff Cash: Cliff Cash got his comedy start in Wilmington, NC at Nutt St. Comedy, now Dead Crow Comedy Room. In the years since he’s gone on to win Port City’s Top Comic, Comedy Zone’s Almost Famous, and Best of the Fest at SLO Comedy Festival, and he’s been a finalist in Comedy Central’s UpNext and Standup NBC. He’s played iconic rooms from The Comedy Store in LA to the Comedy Cellar in New York City. He’s also headlined festivals like Altercation Comedy Festival in Austin and Tree Fort Festival in Boise. Cliff has been featured on Sirius XM Comedy Central, Rawdog, Laughs TV, Rooftop Comedy, and has a half-hour special from Dry Bar. His 2021 debut album Halfway There (released through StandUp! Records ) spent a week at number one on iTunes.
In between touring, Cash is on a mission to see all the national parks in the United States. So far he’s seen 45 out of 62 while traveling in a sprinter van he converted to live in. Being a full time nomad makes being a full time comedian a little more “do-able.” SNL’s Kevin Nealon called him “a mix between Rory Scovel and Bill Hicks,” promised to help him get on Conan, and then never talked to him again.
Cash’s comedy has been called “the comedic voice of the new south” as he challenges old paradigms and stereotypes from his deeply religious and conservative roots. Cliff tackles everything from racism to homophobia, from greed and war to death and divorce saying, “I believe it is our duty as comics to shine the light of levity into the dark corners of the human experience, and by doing so we can take power away from the things that sadden or scare us. Maybe that old saying about laughter being the best medicine really is true. I hope so because I don’t have health insurance.”
