Comedian Dan Mintz, famous for voicing Tina Belcher on Bob’s Burgers, is coming to San Francisco to headline at Punch Line Comedy Club. The Punch Line is the longest running comedy club in San Francisco and a hallmark venue for touring comedians. Mintz’s comedic style leans into the awkward, delivering one-liners in a monotone voice, often with pointed non sequiturs.
Mintz, who will headline the club April 2-4 for his Well Rounded Entertainer tour, has built a career out of that deliberate awkwardness. But the style, he says, wasn’t exactly planned.
“I feel like I didn’t actually put that much thought into it, it kind of happened,” Mintz said. “It started in high school. I noticed with my voice that if I said inappropriate things it was funny because of the contrast,” he said.
The contrast, a dry delivery paired with pointed, often unexpected jokes, has become his signature, partly inspired by comedians like Anthony Jeselnik and the late Mitch Hedberg. Over time, Mintz gravitated toward shorter jokes, evolving the quick-hit structure that defines his stand up today.
Before live comedy, Mintz got his start as a writer, eventually working on hit shows like “Nathan for You” and “Veep.” He explained that writing requires a different kind of flexibility.
“With ‘Nathan for You,’ we have a more similar tone than some other shows but you don’t really get to pick which show you work for. You’re lucky if you get anything because it’s so competitive,” Mintz said, explaining that in writing rooms the challenge becomes matching someone else’s tone. “It’s 80% that, 20% your own voice.”
He noticed the entertainment landscape has changed a lot over the years, “I started in ‘99 [and] you could just see yourself as a writer, artist, performer who was just making something for the world. It’s turned into more and more social media and self-promotion which I don’t love, but you have to adapt.”
However for Mintz, the allure of live performance lies in the audience’s reception and the ability to gain instant feedback. “With stand-up, it’s all my own ideas, and you get that instant response,” he said. “If a joke works, you get to keep doing it. If it doesn’t… it’s very noticeable. But hopefully the next five will.”
Although famous for his voice acting, Mintz doesn’t alter his voice to play the awkward thirteen-year-old on Bob’s Burgers. Mintz discussed how Loren Bouchard, the show creator, built the character around him. Tina was originally written as a boy before evolving into the now-iconic horse and friend-fiction obsessed teenage girl.
“When they told me they were changing the character to a girl, but keeping my voice it felt like it was very gimmicky… like her role was just to say weird things for a joke, but then I was kind of surprised how much they made her a real character,” Mintz said.
The evolution of her character allowed Tina to blossom into a fan favorite on the show, mostly for being completely earnest and unapologetically herself.
“We’re both awkward,” Mintz said, “[but] the big difference is when I was in middle school I was very self-conscious about anything different about me, and Tina embraces it… she’s an aspirational character for awkward people.”
For Mintz, writing a special like the tour is no small feat. “It takes a long time because for me, every joke is twenty seconds and most jokes that you write don’t work, so you gradually collect ones that do. It has been twelve years since the last special but once I really focused on it, it was like a year or two.”
Returning to San Francisco for his Well Rounded Performer tour is a kind of homecoming for Mintz. The Punch Line was the first club he ever played on the road, when he opened for Ben Schwartz in 2003, more than two decades ago.
“It’s such a great club,” Mintz said, “I’m so excited to be there headlining.”
