Charlie Berens brings Wisconsin-based comedy on the road with Good Old Fashioned Tour
MINNEAPOLIS — There may be no better cultural ambassador for Wisconsin than Charlie Berens.
"There's a love for the outdoors, there's a love of taking care of your neighbor, being overly kind," explained Berens.
The comedian and social media star has a journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
In college, Berens was the Wisconsin reporter for MTV News' "Choose it or Lose it."
"The most incredible aspect of that was it really deepened my love for the state and made we proud to be from Wisconsin," explained Berens.
Berens also worked in television news in Dallas, where his Wisconsinisms weren't known.
"It was hot in Dallas and I said, 'Make sure you stay inside and find a bubbler,' and you know we get done and my coworkers are like, 'A bubbler?' Like they're thinking of it not as the water fountain that I know it being in Wisconsin, they're thinking of it as the device you use to smoke the devil's lettuce. I essentially told the DFW area to stay inside and get high today," laughed Berens.
His Wisconsin accent also made work difficult.
"I got voice coaches tell me talk different 'cause I didn't think I was gonna be able to make it in news otherwise. When I started doing comedy, the nice thing about comedy is your biggest weakness is sort of your biggest strength as long as you can make it funny enough," he said.
Berens combined his news background and his humor to create "Manitowoc Minute."
"I started doing stand-up just to keep myself sane. I had this great show and I was doing this bit. A super Midwest news guy, really, and that really saved my set, even if my set was going bad. So, I had this killer set with that as sort of the featured bit and I was like man that felt great. But then there was this sort of deflating thing, but only 50 people saw it or less than that. So I was like, I've got to make this a video. That's when everything kind of changed for me," he said.
Beren's sketch videos have received millions of views.
He wrote "The Midwest Survival Guide," a New York Times bestseller, and now he's doing all new stand-up on the Good Old Fashioned Tour.
"You're kind of always building new stuff and the fun part is at some point during the show you just try stuff that's sort of a half-baked bit, but if the crowd's hot and cooking, you can find the next bit with the crowd a little bit because you're just in a different mental energy up there," he said.
Berens is performing Saturday night at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls.
He has several other upcoming dates in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Find out more at CharlieBerens.com.