Presented by ABC’s Cristela.
Comedian Cristela Alonzo has had a pretty big year. She was named to Variety’s “10 Comics to Watch,” Cosmopolitan’s “10 Female Comedians to Watch For,” and L.A. Weekly’s “10 Comedy Acts to Watch in 2014.” Alonzo is hardly an overnight success; she’s been a touring stand up for more than a decade, playing by her own estimate more 300 colleges. That lead to appearances on Conan, Live at Gotham, Last Comic Standing, The Late Late Show, and a Comedy Central Half Hour special, among others.
This fall, Alonzo is coming to series television with the new ABC comedy Cristela. Co-created the show with Kevin Hench, Alonzo based the show on her life and family, drawing from her upbringing in a small border town in Texas.
Here’s a taste of Alonzo’s wise wit, culled from her voluminous stand up material and interviews.
(Cristela premieres October 10 at 8:30 pm/7:30 pm central on ABC.)
On Being Broke
“The more broke you are, the more you laugh when someone tries to get their money.”
On Compliments
“When you’re a nerdy tomboy, guys don’t pay you compliments like they would to other girls. I’d get compliments like, ‘Hey, you can throw like a guy!’ or, ‘Hey, you can really drink beer!’”
On Debt
“Ever wanna find out which one of your friends doesn’t have any debt? Wait until their cell phone rings. People that don’t have any debt are the only ones who will answer every phone call without looking at caller ID first.”
On Drugs and Alcohol
“If you have a crappy life, you shouldn’t smoke weed. I got high one time. Everything slowed down. The last thing you need when your life sucks is to put that sucker in slow motion. If your life sucks, drink. You might black out, and that’s a fast-forward button.”
On Entourages
“My brother tells me he wants to be the Turtle of my ‘entourage,’ you know, like on the show. Except he uses the Spanish word, so he says he wants to be my ‘Tortuga.’
On Gender Roles
“I’ve never been very girl. As a kid, I hated dolls. My mom bought me a Barbie doll once and I chewed off her legs.”
On Giving Back
“I used to work at a Christian thrift store. I volunteered, gave back to charity. I called it ‘serving the Lord’; they called it ‘court mandated community service.’”
On Gratitude
“My favorite song of all time is ‘We Are the World,’ a beautiful song about giving to poor kids in Africa. And we gave and we gave, and we wonder, did you get our stuff? I need a sequel. Get those African kids together and have them sing me a thank you note.”
On Healthy Eating
“We’ll add junk food to health food to make it taste better, but we never add health to junk food. Closest we get: carrot cake. But even then the carrot that comes with it is made out of frosting on the top. I say screw it. That counts as a vegetable.”
—Comedy Central Half Hour
On Job Hunting
“You ever lie so much on a resume that you’re shocked they gave you the job? Like you lie so much that you want to have a talk with the company to make sure they’re not messing with you.”
On Moderation
“I stopped drinking soda. I only drink seltzer water now. And a lot of beer.”
—Push and Believe With Brody Stevens
On Nicknames
“My name’s Cristela. You guys can call me Cris. That’s my nickname. Nicknames are cool. It’s like your friends are saying, ‘Hey, you have a crappy name. Don’t worry, we’ll fix it for you.’”
—Comedy Central Half Hour
On Optimism
“I’m the kind of person that thinks that everything’s gonna go bad. So if it doesn’t, I feel relieved.”
On Organic Food
“I went to the store to buy some fruits and vegetables. They were selling a pint of strawberries for six dollars. Because they’re organic. I’m sorry, that’s a lot of money. For six bucks, you better show me a picture of white people picking that fruit.”
On Poetry
“Roses are red, violets are blue. They’re also both flowers.”
On Poverty
“When you grow up poor you learn to live without certain luxuries in life, like air conditioning and food allergies.”
—The Late Late Show
“I like saying I’m living off the grid because it sounds better than saying I’m poor.”
On Rap
“I can’t get into half of rap nowadays. It’s always the same thing. All the guys wanna do is brag about all the cool stuff they own. ‘I got a Bentley, I got a Ferrari.’ Who cares? If I was a burglar, though, I would see who has the best stuff and take that guy’s crap.”
—Comedy Central Half Hour
On Religion
“Being Catholic is like having a gym membership. Yeah, we belong, but we never go.”
On Seasons
“Summer is the time where chubby people like me hibernate until winter. Let me know I when i can wear hoodies again.”
On StandUp
“Standup is a perfect combination of everything. You can act, you can write your own thing, and the only thing that sucks is that if you write something that’s not funny, there’s no one to blame but yourself.”
On Stereotyping
“I get tired of people trying to stereotype us because they never get it right. You get a group that says, ‘Mexicans, you’re lazy!’ And then you get a group that says, “Mexicans are taking away our jobs!’ Which one is it? Are we lazy or are we taking away your jobs?”
—Legally Brown
On Time
“I don’t use a calendar to keep track of the year. I use food. When the McRib is out, I know it’s November.”
On Weight Loss
“There are only two kinds of people in the world that own scales. People who think they’re fat, and drug dealers. Skinny people don’t have to check their weight. They’re skinny! All they do is wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and say, ‘Hey, not fat!’”
On Work
“I hate working. I think it’s because when you’re a kid nobody tells you that when you grow up you’re gonna have to work every day of your life.”
