One funny mother: Amherst's Kim DeShields aims for stars

By Bob Dunn
Staff Writer

Published on April 13, 2007

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

This Amherst mom walks onto the stage of a now-defunct restaurant and tells a few jokes, bombs horribly, keeps at it and almost 10 years later is up for a shot at $50,000 on national television and the title of "America's Funniest Mom."

Kim DeShields is one of 12 moms who are competing in the third season of Nick at Nite's "Funniest Mom in America," hosted this time around by Roseanne Barr and featuring judges Hal Sparks and Kim Coles. The season debuted Tuesday.

This format forgoes some of the reality-show conventions of the earlier seasons, in which contestants lived together in a house, performing stunts and competing against each other. This time, it is a straight stand-up competition, DeShields said.

DeShields, who performs under the stage name, "Boney," auditioned at the Comedy Connection in Boston as part of the show's nationwide search for a dozen contestants to compete on the six-part series.

The stage name was given to her by her friend's family and is a nod to Chris Rock's character in the movie "Boomerang."

DeShields, who works as the midday announcer on 106.3 WEIB FM in Northampton, first tried her hand at comedy at the now-closed Peking Garden restaurant in Hadley at an open mic night in 1998. She quickly learned just how true Sir Donald Wolfit's reported last words, "Dying is easy, comedy is hard," could be.

She bombed.

"It was horrible," she said.

Perseverance and some advice from fellow comic, mentor and now friend Nikki Carr helped DeShields stay motivated. She kept honing her act, working out material and getting better and better at her craft.

That doesn't mean there isn't the occasional "tough room," however.

In 2000, DeShields was playing a two-week run in Germany, when she was part of a tour doing comedy for a group of soldiers.

"They were really brutal," she said, laughing about it now. "They took turns snapping on me, dogging my clothes, dogging my hair, but I didn't cry on stage, I waited until I got back to my dressing room. You're not supposed to take it personally, but I'm human."

DeShields said that experience made her a better stage performer and by the third outing in that run, her performances became a lot smoother, despite being rattled early on.

"It made me a lot stronger. You just don't have time to be afraid," she said. "That's the last time I've been abused like that."

That incident helped her learn to deal with unwelcome input from the audience.

"Where there's a bar, there's hecklers," she said. "You can't ignore them - you have to deal with them, or the audience loses respect."

DeShields describes her delivery as deadpan and culls material for her act from her day-to-day life.

"I talk about things that have happened, my ex-husband ... it was an interracial marriage, so that brought comedy," she said. "I have some issues, like OCD to the 10th power. I think that's how it works for me, giving people more information than they ever needed."

Despite being located outside of traditional comedy hubs, DeShields said there's no lack of places for a burgeoning comic to get stage time, and the number of venues is growing.

"You don't need a mainstream room. There's a lot of underground places - you can do comedy just about anywhere," she said.

DeShields said she performs often at the open mic night at the Pioneer Arts Center of Easthampton as well as at venues in Springfield and other spots around the Pioneer Valley.

At 106.3, a smooth jazz station with its offices on North King Street, DeShields gets to try out her jokes on a captive audience: her co-workers, said her supervisor, program director and on-air personality Drew Dawson, who has worked with her for four years.

While the station plays it straight on air, Dawson said, DeShield's jokes fly at the water cooler.

Dawson said DeShields is a "naturally funny person" who can always be counted on to find the grain of humor in the daily routine of office life.

"The humor that she brings to the office, it adds to the flavor of this place," said Dawson. "She doesn't get to use much of her comedy on the air, but in the hallway, everything is fair game."

No limits

DeShields said she doesn't believe anything is off limits when it comes to comedy, but each comic decides for herself how far she's willing to go.

"People come (to a comedy club) to have fun. It's all about you and what your personal boundaries are," DeShields said.

She first learned comedy with the help of a funny family and listening to Richard Pryor records on the sly.

"He's the greatest teacher," she said. She also counts Ellen DeGeneres, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Jon Stewart, David Letterman and Jay Leno among the other comics she admires.

Those comedians parlayed their stand-up acts into movie and television careers years later. DeShields said the current crop of comedians is in an excellent position to do the same.

"(Agents) love a comedian who can act - you're a double threat, you're in high demand," she said. "There's a lot of former stand-ups and comedians who are doing movies now."

Gender differences

DeShields said that while "funny is funny," there are some differences between the genders that arise when it comes to comedy.

For example, DeShields said women typically support live comedy more than men do, making up the majority of the audience at most comedy shows. She said the women come with a different frame of reference than men do and tend to "get" some of her material a little more quickly.

A difference between male and female comedians is being able to shift out of a performance mode.

"You'll be hard-pressed to find a woman comic who's 'on' all the time. That's more of a man thing," she said. "The people who are constantly testing material all the time are a drag."

DeShields said she and the other comedians on "Funniest Mom in America" have all signed confidentiality agreements and only know the progress of the show up to the point that they were involved in it, and can't even reveal that much.

DeShields and her 15-year-old daughter and some other family and friends plan to watch the debut episode at her mother's house tonight.

Despite the hard work, the tough rooms, and the occasional terror that comes from trying to be funny in public on demand, DeShields wouldn't have it any other way.

"It's a serious grind, but it's worth it. They pay me to come tell jokes," she said. "I'm getting there, it's like therapy, just working stuff out."