Joy cleans up her act at the Comedy Club at the Stardome

Published 2:30 pm Thursday, June 3, 2010

Comedian Joy, dubbed “The Queen of Clean,” of Alabaster, will perform her comedy routine at the Comedy Club at the Stardome in Birmingham at June 12 at 7:30 p.m.

Joy calls herself the “Queen of Clean” because she only chooses clean subject matter for her routines and never curses when she’s on stage.

It’s not always easy to avoid cursing during a heated moment, so she’s created her own word to avoid slipping up.

“It’s ‘prodocious’ and it can be used in different ways,” Joy said. “Like when I’m mad at my daughter and I say ‘You are being so prodocious right now,’ it’s in a bad way, but if I’m talking about a good-looking guy and I say ‘Oh, he’s so prodocious,’ like sexy, that’s in a good way.”

Joy, has been doing comedy routines at church for years, but when she lost her job in 2008, she decided to make comedy a full-time job.

“For years people had told me I was funny, but when I lost my job for the second time, I said ‘That won’t happen to me again,’” she said.

Joy looked to her favorite comedians such as Steve Harvey and Doug Williams and began to write down jokes as she watched their shows.

She began performing at her church in Ensley on Sunday mornings and eventually worked her way up to paid gigs at birthday parties, family reunions and even comedy clubs. No matter which venue she appears at, however, she always keeps her routine clean.

“I always took my daughter to my shows with me and I didn’t want to be one of those parents who say ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’” Joy said.

Kennetha Moore, the wife of Joy’s pastor and her self-described “spiritual mother,” said she’s seen Joy come through many struggles in her life, and the feisty comedian always stayed both funny and clean.

“You can’t study to be funny,” Moore said. “You either have it or you don’t. And she has it.”

Moore said she anticipates a bright future for Joy, which she believes will include charity work and appearances on television networks such as TBN.

Joy plans to go to Kuwait later this year to do a routine for American soldiers.

“I think she’ll be the new Bob Hope, doing stuff for our troops to take their minds off the war,” Moore said.

One of Joy’s ultimate dreams for her future would be to have her own talk show, which she said she would use as a platform to encourage and inspire others. Her first guest, she said, would be Chris Rock, who she admires for his ability to take a serious topic and make it funny while still giving it the respect it deserves. She wouldn’t call him a role-model, however, since he generally isn’t “clean” in his routines.

At her show June 12, she’ll cover topics from her own life such as online dating in which she jokes, “His parents dropped him off for our date. I stored him in my phone as “DO NOT ANSWER.” She also jokes about her church: “We like to poke fun at my pastor because his sermons last so long. We say ‘We want to be like the white church and get out in time for lunch!’”

Ultimately, Joy says to her fans, “Come to my show if you wanna laugh without all the filth.”