Origins of AFA’s Big Laugh events

The Big Laugh? Where did that name come from?  Or the idea that AFA in fact does comedy!

I get asked these questions, so here’s the answer!

The very idea of The Big Laugh comedy events was born on January 8th, 2021, on a freezing cold patio of a restaurant in Washington DC, 2 days after what we now refer to as J6.

Katie Hopkins and I sat outside courting pneumonia – because inside could kill you, of course – reeling from the events that had just occurred on the 6th. Katie had come in from London for the rally but because of flight delays, missed the Reichstag Fire events of the day, and she was at a loss as to what to do now. She’d come to the US to lift our spirits, as she has so many times before, but we had a sense that now, quite frankly, was not the time. There was a pall over the nation’s capital, indeed over the nation generally, and we had a lot to sort through as we looked to the consequences of the J6 narrative as well as the looming swearing-in of Joe Biden.

I had noted that for the prior year, I had thought we all needed a Day of the Big Cry – between the Covid lunacy in all its myriad forms, then the election, and just everything that seemed to reflect how broken the world was, it seemed we might want to set aside a day to just get it all out in one BIG CRY then move on, shoulders to the wheel and get busy doing what we could to contend with the nightmare and bring back the America we know and love.

So the thinking was, we could just do the Day of the Big Cry, and follow it with the NIGHT of the BIG LAUGH, and thus the idea was born.

Katie and I both felt that there was a tremendous need to get together and laugh, laugh our heads off, laugh and mock and ridicule, and laugh some more.  The time wasn’t right then, but we knew there would be a time.

And indeed, later that year, we held our first BIG LAUGH event which she keynoted. We also had Adam Yenser, Ann McElhinney, and a few others who tried their hands at stand-up. We had to have the event over two nights, actually, because spaces could only be filled to half-capacity, because, of course, Covid. So we had two sold-out nights in 2021.

And my GOODNESS did we laugh!  I mean, it was just gut-busting, side-splitting hilarity.  It was as if we’d forgotten how to laugh, but together, as a group, we rediscovered joy and community and love of fun. 

We did this again in 2022, also with Katie, Ann and Adam. In 2022, though, the city of Los Angeles mandated vaccine papers, something which no way on earth would I or AFA support. The idea of having our freedom-loving pro-America community be asked for “papers” was just not going to happen, so we wound up at a lovely venue in Santa Monica (which, incredibly, did not have the same mandate!) but of course, we weren’t permitted to be indoors because, again, Covid.

So on an uncharacteristically freezing night, with cold winds blasting us, we had our 2022 Big Laugh event. What utter ludicrousness they put us through, but we did and do keep laughing!

This year, no papers are required, and we will be in a lovely venue in Culver City. Indoors. How absurd to be grateful for that.

Having Ann and Adam back is fantastic, and we are excited to have Brandon Straka try his hand at comedy!

Lord knows this year we could have used a Day of the Big Cry, but we’re going to jump right to the Night of the Big Laugh and have a fabulous time!

Hope to see you there!