MANSFIELD — Comedian Chris Hopkins is watching society these days for more than his own edification.
He is always observing, listening, and thinking about what could make good fodder for his next show.
It’s in much the same vein as the comics he grew up watching — observational comedians like Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and Eddie Murphy.
And though he never met humorist Mark Twain (who died in 1910), Hopkins understands the value of making people think even as they laugh.
After all, today’s mistakes become tomorrow’s best bits. It was Twain who told us, “Humor is tragedy plus time.”
Hopkins, who headlines a show Wednesday night at The Mothership in Mansfield, 327 Park Ave. West, appreciates the value of a well-crafted joke.
“You have comedy where someone is trying to get a chuckle. And then you have the influence of Mark Twain … they still present the Mark Twain Award for being able to write things that make people laugh AND think … I think that’s what is really missing,” Hopkins said.
He wants to be among those who make people laugh and think, “instead of just hitting them over the head.”
“Our society right now, especially in comedy, is real polarized right now … whether it’s a completely right-wing point of view or completely liberal … they are trying to get laughs out of just 51 percent of the audience,” he said.
Three other comics — Jay Terry, Steve Myers, and Terrance Thagawdshow — will join Hopkins at The Mothership, as well as the musical comedy stylings of Ace Grymwood (Mansfield’s own Drew Jordan).
Tickets are $10 and the show starts at 8 p.m.
“I want to get everyone to laugh and think at the same time. I don’t want to get preachy. I don’t want to hit anyone over the head. I don’t have any sacred cows. If I make fun of one group, I am making fun of all of us,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins is an Ohio native, now living and working primarily in the Toledo area. Originally from Columbus, he lived in Mount Vernon for seven years in the 1990s.
Creating art as a rapper and rock band performer, Hopkins said he moved into stand-up comedy at the encouragement of a girlfriend and the dare of a friend.
He had performed in clubs around the country even as he worked on his comedy chops. All of that changed, as it did for many performers, when the COVID pandemic hit in 2020.
“It was March 2020. I had a great set that night (in Kentucky). At the end of the show, they put me in a really nice hotel. I got a meal and I went to the bar and I looked up at the TV screens. They announced the NCAA basketball tournament was cancelled due to COVID,” Hopkins said.
“That’s when I knew the whole planet was getting shut down,” he said.
It’s also when Hopkins said he needed to make a professional choice.
“My girlfriend is from the Fort Worth (Texas) area. They got freedom in Texas,” he said with a laugh.
Hopkins moved his career to the Lone Star State and continued to work.
“I wound up being able to work on my craft while everybody (in other states) was shut down. And when the world began to open back up, I had kind of made up some ground on other people,” he said.
Hopkins, a trained radio broadcaster, understands that it’s not easy to do observational humor in a world where many people no longer observe anything beyond pop culture.
“Now, the way things are, people don’t even understand what news is. They can run a lead (news item) on Britney Spears or the Diddy case … and we’ve been at war for 20 years, and it used to be that you would know who we were at war with … what was going on.
“People could read a map. People understood different parts of government, where their tax money went. It’s not really to take sides at all because nobody knows crap. Nobody knows crap.
“There are no more Dan Rathers and Walter Cronkites,” he said with a laugh.