Moody Molavi
A few months ago, my wife Cindy and I were at the Comedy Catch in Chattanooga, awaiting the headline act. Before the star comedian takes the stage, two other comics get the crowd warmed up. The emcee opens the show, followed by a featured comedian.
The job of the featured comedian is to set up the headliner. He should get everyone in a good mood, and is usually given twenty minutes to do so. The featured comedian is, more often than not, a young comic “on the way up,” learning the ropes, hoping to someday become a headliner himself.
On this night, that comedian was a real attention-getter. Standing north of six feet, and carrying upward of 250 pounds, Moody Molavi commands, even dominates the stage. Although he grew up in Chattanooga, I had somehow missed out on this guy, even though he had performed numerous times at the Comedy Catch. Like everyone else, I had gotten tickets for the sole purpose of seeing the headline act. You never even know who the opening comics will be. I’m glad I was finally exposed to the comedy of Moody Molavi.
Is that his real name? Well, sort of. Born to an Iranian doctor and an American nurse, his real first name is beyond my spelling and pronunciation skills. So he calls himself Moody, and so shall we. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg0PXqanvEQ
Most southern comedy club audiences see him go on stage, and have no idea what to expect. He has some surefire opening lines to put everyone at ease. He admits most people are thinking, “That’s the biggest Iranian I’ve ever seen!”
He does a dead-on southern accent, and why not? He’s been in Chattanooga since the age of 6, after living in iran, Greece and Spain as a child. He attended Chattanooga schools, and raised his family here until moving to Murfreesboro, TN last summer.
Being “an Iranian Southern Baptist” hasn’t always been easy. He admits he’s been “fat shamed and heritage shamed, yes, there is such a thing.”
Early on, he found the best way to combat that behavior was by being the better person, the funnier person, and encouraging others to be kind. For a comedian, he spends a surprising amount of time spreading a positive message. Unlike many comics who “go low,” you actually leave Moody’s show feeling better about yourself than when you entered.
Along the way, he shares his own experiences with police officers, airline attendants and security personnel, and even family members. His wife Kelley (his high school sweetheart), teenage sons Mason and Dillon, and his older brothers make up some of the funniest parts of his act. He mines comedy gold from his supersized life and career (he’s an IT guy when he’s not telling jokes).
Speaking of family, get this. Shortly after marrying Kelley, she became his step-sister, when his mother married her father. If you can’t find comedy out of this, you’re not trying. “Comedy is what I’ve always wanted to do,” he said as we shared a recent lunch. “My mom got cable, with all the channels, as soon as we moved to Chattanooga. My brothers and I were struggling on tests that included American culture, so we were indoctrinated quickly. I found the comedy specials with Eddie Murphy and all the big standups of the 80s, and learned so much from them.”
Molavi is taping a special at the Comedy Catch this Sunday Dec. 15th at 7:30 p.m. He hopes many of his childhood friends, and fellow members of ChristWay Community Church in Ooltewah will be in the audience. “They’re the ones who always told me I was funny, and that I should do this for a living, so now’s their chance to see if they were right!” he said.
Although he’s done comedy as a side hustle for several years, he hopes that stand-up can be his primary occupation in the years to come. Making the transition from feature act to headliner is like moving up from AA baseball to the major leagues. It doesn’t happen overnight, and requires years of training, sacrifice, expanding your act, and then honing it to a crowd-pleasing 45 minutes.
That 45 minutes better include hundreds of laughs, enough to make your face hurt by the end. He said, “You’ve heard that phrase ‘a laugh a minute’? If that’s all you can get as a comedian, you’ve failed. You need to get at least six laughs a minute. It has to be non-stop. I don’t do scripted comedy. I’m all over the place, but if it makes the audience laugh, it’s all good.”
He enjoys the comedy clubs, but also loves doing his act for church groups, private functions, and especially military audiences. “I never served in the military,” he said, “but my oldest son is, and I see how important it is to keep everyone’s spirits up. That is a real honor for me.”
When you get the chance to see Moody Molavi, check him out. His unique outlook on southern life, as seen through the eyes of an “Iranian Southern Baptist Uncle Daddy,” shaped by childhood experiences like few others, is a feast of laughter and humanity.
Check out his website HERE
