Culture & Community

By Susan Yerkes Cleto Rodriguez: Bringing the Laughter Back

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AMAZON PRIME, CLETO RODRIGUEZ SPECIAL

Amazon.com/Devil-Get-Heck-Outta-Here/dp/ B08JLM478Z

CLETO RODRIGUEZ STAAGE

Facebook.com/CletoComedyandEventsStage

LAS CHILADAS Laschiladas.com

Cleto and Lynette

Cleto and Family

Cleto Rodriguez always wanted to make people laugh. Today, at 50, comedy is still his passion—and his life’s work.

These days, the San Antonio-born comedian is nationally recognized, with a comedy special on Amazon Prime and another in the works, a DVD of his “Work In Progress” show, a slate of stand-up bookings, a slew of YouTube videos and a podcast in the making. For years, he gathered fans with his “Where’s Cleto” feature on local TV news. He even has a stage named in his honor—the Cleto Rodriguez Comedy/ Live Events Stage at Las Chiladas, a popular local Tex-Mex restaurant and entertainment venue where he performs and hosts a variety of other entertainers.

His name may be familiar for another reason. His grandfather, Cleto L. Rodriguez, served as an infantry rifleman in the U.S. Army during World War II and was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism in the Philippines. After returning home to San Antonio, he became a highly-respected advocate for minorities and veterans. A local freeway was named after him.

“My grandfather was my hero,” Cleto said. “He would take me with him to events and I loved the attention and admiration he got.” So, Cleto planned a career in the service, too. “I took the Air Force entrance exam the day my grandfather died, after seeing him in the hospital for the last time,” he said. He failed the test by one point. He had another ambition, though—to entertain people. “Ever since I was little, I had a dream of making it. And I could make people laugh,” he said.

“In my junior and senior years of high school, I got a job driving a tour boat on the River Walk, and I remember looking up at the hotels and clubs and thinking I could make a living working in those places.”

He started out like so many ambitious amateurs, taking any gig, paid or otherwise, and working in a warehouse to pay the bills. Back then, his act was very different.

“My heroes were like Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. I was a dirty, filthy comic,” he says. A woman changed everything. When he and his wife Lynette first started dating, he took her to one of his shows. She was offended by the language.

“She told me she wanted a God-fearing man, and I told her, ‘I hope you find one.’ But a man will follow a beautiful woman to church and to prison,” he says. Gradually, he became the man she wanted to marry—and he hasn’t looked back. He learned he could keep it clean and still succeed—in fact, he found even greater success with comedy based on life as a husband and father, and the trials and tribulations of everyday life.

“People ask me why I don’t do topical political humor,” he says. “I will the day my family stops talking, maybe. But they can’t stop talking, so I keep writing about them.”

Not just writing, but delivering the goods with his trademark grimaces and inflections. That physical comedy is central to a bit about watching a Superman movie at home with his wife during the pandemic.

“She’s looking at Superman with his shirt off, and then she looks at me, sitting there with no shirt on and a plate of nachos balanced on my stomach…I said, ‘You want Superman?’ and I drew a big S on my chest with nacho cheese.”

When his wife gave him a P90X workout video for their anniversary, he wrote a whole bit about it.

“I was sweating off tacos I haven’t had since third grade,” he says. “Even my fat was sore!”

Cleto says his all-time favorite comedian is the late, great Rodney Dangerfield, whose tagline was “I don’t get no respect!” The seven children he and Lynette share give him plenty of ego-busting material, he says. “I’ll never forget the first time I came on TV. I took the family to the Olive Garden and a lady started staring at me. Finally, she leaned over and said, ‘Cleto, we think you’re hilarious.’ My daughter was 9 at the time, and she says, ‘Oh, ma’am, thank you so much for saying that—he never hears that and we really appreciate it.’ And my big head went ‘zoop!’”

For nine years, Cleto sought out interesting people and places in his “Where’s Cleto” segment on San Antonio’s NBC affiliate, WOAITV. He credits then-news director Tom Bell, the father of actress Kristin Bell, for “discovering” him. “To this day, he tells me I was his best decision in the news business,” he says with pride. That segment ended when the station experienced a string of layoffs earlier this year. For Cleto, it’s a mixed blessing.

“I loved it, but every weekday morning I was waking up at 5:00am and touring on weekends,” he says. “Devil, Get The Heck Outta Here,” last winter, it came at the perfect time, with the pandemic at its height.

“I think we really all need something positive right now. There’s so much anger and division, we need to bring some fun and laughter back.”

For Cleto, bringing the laughter back is the perfect career

WRITER’S BIO

Susan Yerkes is an award-winning journalist and travel writer based in San Antonio who loves to laugh.

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