The comedy club known as the Cleveland Improv since 1989 is now called the Funny Bone. What does that mean?
No changes but the name on the door.
The club — located at 1148 Main Ave. in the Flats — has the same ownership, the same management, the same booking and the same schedule as what was Cleveland Improv. In fact, the club was always part of the Funny Bone family, which is a chain of comedy clubs across the country.
Current Funny Bone co-owner Todd Leinenbach said legendary Improv founder Bud Friedman, who passed away in 2022 and who started what would become a nationwide string of clubs in 1963 with a pint-sized operation in New York, years ago approached the original ownership group and offered them a licensing deal so they would gain some immediate name recognition for their comedy clubs and get some experienced booking, too. They agreed, and a number of Funny Bone clubs operated as Improvs. In Cleveland, Friedman opened the Improv with Funny Bone co-founder and Northeast Ohio native Mitch Kutash.
Over the years, the group took over their own booking and made the Funny Bone name a popular one with comedians and patrons in other cities. So, as the current licensing deals are expiring, including in Tampa, Kansas City and Orlando, they decided to use the name they’ve built themselves, and convert some existing Improvs to Funny Bones.
As Leinenbach told our sister paper in Tampa, it’s not the sign outside but what happens inside that keeps people coming back.
“The success or failure is strictly the acts you put on that stage, and the customer experience,” he said.
