I started working full time as a comedian in 2005, shortly after we did the Vince Vaughn 'Wild West Comedy Show.' I worked at the Four Seasons hotel from 1998 to 2005, so about seven years, just trying to put some food on the table and pay the rent while I went out to the open mics and got my feet wet with stand-up comedy.

He hit the circuit in 1917 as 'Frank Fay, Nut Monologist,' and resistance was immediate. Variety critically stated, 'Fay needs a good straight man, as before, to feed his eccentric comedy.' A comedian standing alone onstage? Unheard of. Doesn’t this guy know anything about showbiz? To stand still and tell jokes was a foreign move. To perform without some kind of gimmick was considered amateurish.

Frank Fay [...] became renowned as the first of the great comic emcees—and in many minds the first stand-up comedian.

Frank Fay turned into the most consistent stand-up comic of the late 1920s and essentially changed the art form. Crowds and critics eventually came to accept a man standing alone, cracking wise. No longer did Fay bill himself as a 'Nut Monologist.