He also voices the character Cooper in the upcoming DreamWorks animated series.

Trolls Topia, please welcome our really good friend.

Thrilled he's here in person.

Ron Funches.

Ron, Ron.

Thanks for being here.

I'm happy to be here.

Yeah, you.

You know, you and I spent a lot of time together.

We toured together.

I always enjoy my time with you.

And then, um, most of these interviews that we're doing our on zoom.

And then I find out Ron is actually going to come to the theater and hang with us.

So you made my day.

Thank you.

Yeah, well, I got half a shot, so I was willing to risk it.

And I was just like I want I love Largo is one of my favorites.

You performed here at Largo?

Quite a bit.

So, you know, this is, like, kind of a comedy mecca here and here in LA um and how long ago did you get started at Largo?

Did you Did you play here when you were just starting out?

When I first moved to Los Angeles.

Yeah, come to Largo quite a bit and end up on guessing on other people's shows.

A lot of their in friends show, and any time I did it, I was like, Oh, I feel like I'm really good at comedy.

And then I will talk to Flannery and he was like, Oh, you should book your own show here And then we book it and then we'd always cancel it because of lack of ticket sales.

Is that true flan again?

Did you?

It is true.

It is true.

What, Twice?

Twice.

No, it was not because of the pandemic.

No, it was too lax.

But that's why he believes in me more than the general public.

What I like, right, Right.

Would you have to tell with with Flanagan, call you up and go.

It's not happening tonight.

You will not be doing a show started feeling like you might want to push it.

Maybe we'll wait another year until you're a little more a little more famous.

Um, yeah, that's how he treated.

That's what he did to me.

And I had, like, had a late night show for years.

He'd be like, I don't think you're ready for Largo.

If you got any tape I could look at.

Yes, I've got 7000 hours of tape you could look at.

Now.

You say you got half the shots, you got one of two shots.

Okay?

Yeah, I went.

And, um, there was just, you know, there's lack of of just general, anything being put together.

So that was just like, if you show up, wait for a couple hours and you can get a shot.

And I've just been, you know, I'm the pretty much the breadwinner in my family.

So I was like, it's important for me to go back out, go and do shows, go and do sets.

And so I didn't want to jump in line on anybody, But if I could just wait in line like I'm waiting in line for Nintendo, I'm waiting in line for sneakers.

I can't wait in line for this.

You have your priorities straight.

As long as you've got the Nintendo you wanted and you got the sneakers, you want it.

Then it's time to maybe wait in line for a shot.

It was very similar experience, really.

Just black people were excited talking about what they were gonna do once they got it.

They were like, We're gonna get soup.

I'm gonna get soup.

Yeah.

Lady was real excited to go to a diner and get soup.

I got the vaccine, and now I can get soup.

Wow.

She goes her spot at her counter and go get soup.

That's amazing.

I feel that you know what really made me feel a lot more optimistic and just grateful and be like, Oh, yeah, A lot of these people were really old and they were just like, I just want to be able to die of natural causes and not just that I can't wait to die of natural causes.

I say that all the time.

That's true.

I feel like that's a luxury.

That's true.

I always wanted to go out and like, a something a little dramatic, like a bear attack, you know, like I want What if the bear eats me, except for a part of the leg and the bear is like, I'm good, I'm good and the kids are like, No, no, no, no.

You gotta finish.

You got Dad wanted every all of him eating.

He's like I really?

I can't.

I want to leave room for dessert from pound cake.

You know, I don't like either, though.

That's okay.

Naturally, have my family be upset and then have them, like, fight over my fortune.

I you know, I will say your and I've always noticed this about you.

You are very upbeat person.

And I appreciate that because I said we we did a tour together.

We went to a lot of cities.

We were in, you know, close quarters a lot.

And you're always You seem optimistic.

You're you've got a good life.

Energy.

How do you maintain that?

Is it tough to do, like, right now?

Uh, sometimes, yeah.

Sometimes it is tough to do when you you can just start getting down on.

I mean, all of us.

If you look for crocodiles, you'll find them.

You know, you can say what's going wrong and see if it's all around you.

But, um, I just think like this time period is, what I'm built for is because if it's easy to be optimistic when things are going well, just like you know, when comedy and everything was flourishing, everybody was here in town and then as a sign of trouble.

Everybody wants to leave.

But like I'm here, I have nowhere else to go.

I want to do this.

And whether is, as you know, I wanted to be or something different.

I'll do my part to make it better.

Be a positive.

That's my job.

Is your I have found my kids.

My kids are My daughter is 17, my son's 15.

They've struggled a little bit because they don't like zoom learning and they can get down.

How's your son?

How old is your son, Malcolm?

My son will be 18 in April.

Okay, So how is he doing with all this?

He does pretty well.

He makes the kids in his class, called him King Malcolm on the zoom, he wears a Burger King crown and makes them He just leans into So it's delusions of grandeur.

Maybe.

Yeah.

If anything, he's like I caused this.

I no longer want to go to school.

So you all come to me.

I were a crown, and I just do this online, but, um, you know, he does miss some of his friends and things, but he's been a real trooper.

That's another person that makes me optimistic when he's just like it is what it is.

Covid, 19, sucks 2020 sucked.

But we just keep going to school, right?

And I was like, Man like, Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, as long as he's got a Burger King crown, he decided for his birthday.

He wrote his birthday list, which is every year.

Wait a minute.

This is gonna be a big one.

So he's going to be 18, so that 18 is a big year.

Once you turn 18, certain doors open to like what you're allowed to.

Is he very aware of that?

So he is very well, He's a rule follower.

I think it's part of the autism that makes him really just focusing on rules.

But he's real aware.

He was like I turned 18 already movies.

He has a list.

He's like, I want explicit CDs.

The next thing said adult toys, which I'm Does he know?

Does he know it's not?

Does he know what adult Toys R.

I'm tired of these Children toys.

I want adult.

I I truly hope he does not.

But you know what?

It's time for him to learn.

Either way, you did not know what an adult toy was.

When I turned 18, I did not.

I'm still not sure that's what your wife.

I wasn't sure.

I thought it was an egg timer, didn't she's like, Where did you find that it was in your drawer?

The eggs are, I think, ready.

One of the things that's been kind of, I think, cool for you is that for a lot of us, it's, We need an audience, and we're kind of locked into this one sort of narrow way of doing things.

You?

Yes, you're a very popular stand up comedian, but you also have been getting a lot of voice over work.

And you got this trolls gig, which is a big deal.

And I would think that that's something you can be working on and doing during Covid, because you can probably do it during a in a safe way.

If it's voice over work, yeah, no, it's been beautiful to have voice acting in my life.

I used to kind of be of two minds about because I love stand up and I consider myself a comedian first and foremost, and so I'd be like, Oh, maybe if I focus more than people would be like, he's such a brilliant stand up.

And then this pandemic happened.

I was like, Oh, no, it's good.

This is dead now So it's good to be a jack of all trades and just have a complex Web.

And if if I don't think if it wasn't for trolls, it would've been very much more difficult year for me, and it's just fun.

It allows me to still be a child and just be playful and just play around.

I mean, I loved it when I was in final space and you, like, you were my dad and that, like, I love being all these different worlds and and playing around, So I really appreciate trolls.

You also have a very distinctive voice like you're, and I think that's a real gift, which I don't know if you liked it when you were a kid.

No, you didn't like it.

You know, people always make fun of me.

Or even when I worked at a bank call center and they call me Rhonda, which we talked about before you had a whole other life.

When you're working in a bank, you did talk about that once with me.

Which is you worked at a call center.

People called you Rhonda, clean into it.

You lean into it.

And now it's the fact that you can do all these cool voices and you haven't Well, that's not true.

I have one voice at different energies.

That's your Ron sleepy or Ron excited.

Sometimes the voice acting.

People don't know that.

And they go, Can you play this other character?

And I'm like, Well, he's going to sound a lot like the first one.

You sound exactly like this now.

The people you grew up with.

Are you close with any of them?

Have you stayed in touch with any of them?

Are you one of those guys that just moved on?

No, I'm still close with some of them.

I have some good friends.

My friend.

One lung.

He's really cool guy.

One lung?

Yeah, he has one lung.

That's what I figured that from his nickname.

He'll be weird if we call them day.

He actually has three lung, so we call him one.

You know, it's like, Yeah, it's like calling a tall guy Shorty.

Yeah.

Wow.

Actually worked at the bank with me and that we're still friends.

And I've been running like a twist channel where play games and stuff.

And he helps me run that.

So, um no.

I staying close with some of the people.

I also follow some of my high school crushes on only fans now, which has been very enjoyable for me.

Only fans.

The thing where that's that's the site where women sort of you have classmates that are on only fans.

Yeah, I was like, I did not know.

I just had to be patient and just wait this out.

So these are girls who had crushes on.

And now you can take out your MasterCard and, uh, and and and talk to them and I don't talk to them.

No, that'd be rude.

Have married.

I just look at them naked, as opposed to just point star who doesn't like why I don't care about how they live or how they're growing.

Why not just help my friend and and they're naked endeavors.

Are you gonna go to ever go to a school reunion and say, Oh, I watch you all the time on only I mean, you've really you look good.