Arts & Entertainment

Craig Robinson

Comedian-turned cast member of The Office heads to HoustComedian-turned cast member of The Office heads to Houston

By Dusti Rhodes 

Comedian Craig Robinson, of The Office fame, once picked up a woman with a song called “Can I Have Some Booty?” “I was in college and I was talking to this girl, and I was like, ‘I’m going to tell you something,’ and I started playing the song,” he says. Afterwards, everything went silent and he was worried, but then he realized she was just laughing so hard she couldn’t speak. He and the girl started dating; later, when he tried to break up with her, she thought he was kidding. “She called, ‘Hey, what are we doing today?,’ and I was like ‘What are you talking about? It’s over!’ She said, ‘You so silly.’ That was that. So, we’re married now,” he says jokingly and laughs.

When Robinson’s not playing Darryl, the deadpan warehouse worker from NBC’s The Office who hilariously misleads and mocks Michael Scott (Steve Carell), he’s working on movies like Knocked Up and Pineapple Express and breaching into the increasingly popular world of Webisodes. (His own, Mr. Robinson’s Driving School, is a side-splitting story about battling driving instructors.)

Robinson is so busy, it’s hard to see when he has takes time to do stand-up. “I’m addicted to it,” he says. His style includes both traditional stand-up and musical numbers like the “Booty” song. “I remember going to this open mike called Heckler’s Heaven, where three people would have a rubber chicken and they would have three other people with scorecards,” Robinson says. If a comedian could last three minutes without getting three chickens thrown at them, he says, they were given five more minutes. “I think I got like two chickens and said goodnight,” he says and laughs. “But then the next week I took my keyboard and kind of just did some parodies and played a little bit and they were into it,” he says. See how he won over that audience and countless more today at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Laff Stop, 526 Waugh Drive. Robinson also appears at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, October 18, and at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. tomorrow. For tickets and information, call 713-524-2333 or visit www.laffstop.com. $20 to $25
Oct. 17-18, 8:30 p.m.; Oct. 19-20, 8 & 10:30 p.m., 2007