His first attempt at standup comedy earned Tom Cotter ’86 a disqualification from Denison talent show judges — but admiration from fellow students.
While Cotter’s jokes about campus life weren’t profane, they were pointed. Two faculty members serving as judges weren’t impressed, refusing to rate the act.
“Obviously, I didn’t win,” Cotter said. “But for the next two weeks, guys who had never given me the time of the day were high fiving me, telling me how great it was. That was the first bite.”
The second was attending the standup routines of Joe Bolster ’75, who used to perform twice a year on campus as part of an athletic fundraiser.
“I fell in love with standup,” said Cotter, who was a senior political science major at the time. “Law school was pushed to the back burner and then completely off the stove.”
Cotter has made a nice living “working one hour a day,” as he puts it, in front of audiences around the country. He’s appeared on network late-night talks shows, Comedy Central specials, and the television competition Last Comic Standing. His career highlights include finishing runner-up in the seventh season of America’s Got Talent (2012) — Cotter was the first comedian to reach the finals — and returning in 2019 to compete against some of the show’s top acts through the years.
All of it started with that first performance on campus.
“Going to Denison was the best decision of my life — and I’m saying this in front of my wife right now — but it’s true,” Cotter said. “I adored my time in Granville. There’s still a group of us from school who get together every year for a canoe trip in the summer and a ski trip in the winter.”
Cotter said the idea of passing on law school took some time for his father, Walter, a respected neurosurgeon, to embrace.
“He spent a lot of money on six kids to go to private school and college,” Cotter said. “To have his youngest declare that he wants to tell jokes in basements in front of drunks was not a proud moment for him.”
But Cotter’s career longevity has validated his decision. Along the way, he married a fellow comedian, Kerri Louise, and the couple has three sons.
“She doesn’t bounce ideas off me, she bounces frying pans,” Cotter said. “We defuse marital tension quite often with laughter. Humor brought us together and has kept us happy.
“We each wrote a book. Hers is called Mean Mommy and mine is called Bad Dad. So we know our kids are going to be in therapy, and we’re OK with that.”