Quotes & Jokes by Dat Phan
I watch Japanese animation, right? My mom's like, 'Dat Phan, you cannot watch cartoon - it's too violent!' This is the same woman that goes, like, 'Dat Phan, if you don't take out the trash now, I will kill you!'
I don't think my mom’s racist, but I think she's old fashioned, you know? And she doesn't know how to, like, talk about it with me. She's like, 'Dat Phan, you like the soup? Eat the soup. Right there. You like the soup? Why you date the white girl?'
My poor mom, she's like, 'That's my son, Dat Phan. He crack joke all the time. I tell him go to law school, become a lawyer. But no, he move up to Hollywood - he live out of his car; he eat Top Ramen with all the gay guys.'
I try not to represent just Asians. Instead, I try to expose our culture to everyone through humor & performance; Hoping that we will be a part of each other and more so a part of everything in a positive light
My dad only said two things to me around the house, you know, when I was there. Number one: 'Ok, Ok, USA.' And two: 'Good. Good, Dat Phan.' How do you carry a conversation on with that? Like, 'Dad, how are you doing?' 'Ok.' Like, 'Dad, the house is on fire.' 'Ok.'
Money comes and goes. I'm thankful I have money. I'm trying to save up more. I would like more money. But it's not happiness. If you're a millionaire and hate your family, hate your friends and your life, then what is the point? You're just a person with a lot of money and power who is not happy.
I'm gonna come home with, like, five fake earrings on and be like, 'Mom, today I joined five gangs.' 'Huh! You also five times gay! Get out of house, fruit loop.'
My mom was so strict when I was a kid, she wouldn’t even let us watch The Brady Bunch. The Brady Bunch! She was like, "That’s why you don’t watch The Brady Bunch, that show suck. Six kids, that’s nothing. That’s right, I have ten kids. Why don’t you watch me? No commercial here. No ads. I run the whole operation, Dat Phan, watch me."
I didn't do real well. I bombed. Something inside me told me to keep trying because I had nothing to lose. I gave it another shot, and I still bombed, but I got one laugh. And that laugh gave me encouragement to continue for the next seven years.
And I come from a small Vietnamese family. We’re really close too, all ten of us.
I was living under a desk in West Hollywood. It was a closet that I shared with another comic. I was shocked when they called me to come in to try out for the show. The chances of me getting on a TV show and winning it is like one-in-a-million. I had only been doing comedy for six years at that point, so I was basically considered an open mic-er or maybe a feature act once in awhile.
Vietnam, we take over by doing pedicure! That's how we take over. We take over one foot at a time, damn it - that's the plan of attack right there. We take over from the toe up, that's the plan. We spread over USA like fungus from the toe.
I knew comedy was for me when I was the only Asian in high school that failed math. But you know when I failed eight other students around me failed too.
It's kind of funny how that happened. When I was a child, I had a dream of one day becoming very influential and being in the entertainment world. I really wanted badly for that to happen, and in the last couple of years, my manager told me I was nominated for the group of the Most Influential Vietnamese-American Individuals in the world, along with generals and ambassadors and surgeons. It's an honor. It's mind-boggling. I'm a college dropout; I'm a high school failure, someone who came from a homeless background, but I understand the American pop culture and doing comedy from my heart led me to be in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.