In what is sure to be a highlight of the summer, David Spade makes an appearance at the Taft Theatre on Sunday, June 8.
Fresh off the release of his new special, Dandelion, out on Amazon Prime, Spade will be making a stop in Cincinnati for his upcoming “I Got A Feel For It” tour, named after a spot-on, standout line he delivered on the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special earlier this year.
He’s been a celebrated voice in comedy since finding an audience with his quick wit, laidback sarcasm and deceptively subtle delivery, first as a stand-up, and then as a cast member in a generation-defining era on Saturday Night Live where he would meet lifelong collaborators Dana Carvey and Adam Sandler, among others. Standout sketches like “Gap Girls,” his recurring Weekend Update segment “Hollywood Minute” and “Total Bastard Airlines” — along with the sketch’s catchphrase you can probably hear reading this now, “buh-bye” — helped launch a successful film and TV career.
Breakout buddy comedies Tommy Boy and Black Sheep, made with real-life buddy and late comedy legend Chris Farley, have become perennial favorites, along with his first solo starring role in Joe Dirt. Appearances in movies like Coneheads, The Emperor’s New Groove, the Grown Ups franchise and Covid-era Netflix hit The Wrong Missy helped make him a household name.
In addition to starring in TV shows and movies, he’s also shot comedy specials for HBO, Comedy Central, Netflix and, now, Prime.
He also co-hosts the podcast Fly on the Wall with fellow SNL alum and comedy legend Dana Carvey, which won the 2025 iHeartPodcast Award for Best Comedy.
Spade was loose, down to earth and upbeat as we spoke over the phone about his Cincinnati connection, stand-up, his experience filming the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special, people working in Hollywood again and much more. Our conversation is edited slightly for length and clarity.
David Spade: Hey Brent, it’s Spade, what’s going on brotha’?
CityBeat: Not much. I’m happy to be doing this and I appreciate you doing it.
DS: Doing some Cincy action, are you?
CB: (laughs) That’s right, yeah.
DS: Am I allowed to call it Cincy?
CB: You can do that, people call it that. Your mom’s from Cincinnati, right? Do you have any family here still or any connection to Cincinnati?
DS: My mom is (from) a city called Ironton (that) she grew up in and then when she got married, we flew out there after a while and saw Cincinnati for a few weeks. I think it rained the whole time we were there but that’s all I remember as a kid, but as a kid, you know, I don’t know anything. She wanted us to see it. And my dad went to Denison, she went to Denison. So, yeah, she’s all dialed in there so she’s excited I’m going.
CB: I watched the new special last night and it was great, man.
DS: Oh, that’s great, you saw it?
CB: Yeah. I’ve heard you talk about bands being able to play their greatest hits live, you know, the difference between stand-up and music — what can people expect at these shows, and will you be doing some of your classic stuff and older bits?
DS: You know, I was just talking to Dana (Carvey) about this. I think, especially when the special comes out, right away, that it takes me a while to generate a whole new hour. And I want it to be good, so what I’ll do is it’ll be a mixture of new things I like that I’ve been working on and then stuff that’s funnier. I think what I realized is, not everyone’s seen every single special and seen all of every special. And also, I don’t mind hearing stuff from Bobby Lee or Sebastian (Maniscalco) when I bring a friend to the Comedy Store. I go, ‘Oh, I hope they do this one, I hope they do that one’ because, to me, it is like music where you go, oh, I kind of want to not sing along, but you know I wanna just laugh along to this one I remember. And a lot of the bits expand. Like, I do them, they might be a little undercooked and as I do them for the next few months, they get longer and longer, and then they get better. So, I think I’ve never really had any problems or complaints about that being a mix, but, because I owe them also when they’re paying a lot and coming down to the theater, that it should work and be funny and (they) laugh the whole time. If some bits were bombing, I’d say, ‘Well, they gotta go.’
So, I think we’ve had a good reaction and I’m having fun with it. I’m doing three cities in Ohio which is the most I’ve probably done in any state. We get requests and I think theaters ask and then that’s how we figure out what to do. But I’m all for hitting the heartland.
CB: That’s great, yeah. I mean, I know you’re appreciated here and I’m sure everywhere, but we appreciate you coming here, man.
DS: I mean, Tommy Boy was technically Sandusky, Ohio, so we definitely have people that know we know about Ohio.
CB: Speaking of stand-up, who were some people who inspired you to do stand-up and inspired your style?
DS: Well, it kind of went in phases. I think George Carlin was like the first one I kind of remember, and then when I started to watch Johnny Carson I’d see some people that made me laugh. Seinfeld’s always been an influence as a sharp writer and a clean, clever comic. Would I ever think I would meet him in my life, no. And that’s sort of the fun of a Steve Martin, you know, I grew up on his albums. And then, more present day, Theo (Von) — I think he has some really clever stuff — Shane Gillis, Sebastian (Maniscalco) has some great stuff and Ali Wong is funny to me. So, there are people out there that still crack me up and I have a good time watching even newer people at the Comedy Store and just go, ‘Oh, I better keep my eyes peeled, this one has some game.’
CB: I know you do a lot of spots so I guess you probably are seeing all the people that are coming up or these new faces that are doing great stuff.
DS: Yeah. I mean, I take it seriously. Like, I’m on the road so I went out last night. I have Vegas with Nikki (Glaser) this weekend, so we do it together which is a little easier, we have a sort of residency. She’s great and we have overlapping fans, so it’s really fun to go out and it’s obviously less pressure. I practice at these clubs during the week because I want some new stuff. I wanna sharpen up and I wanna go out there and when I hit the stage, not be a bumbling fool.
CB: (laughs)
DS: You know, these people want a good show and it’s hard. I bring openers that I think are funny and then I just think people come and they leave going, ‘Ok, that was just a fun, mindless night that I don’t have to worry about anything.’
CB: Yeah, you got to stay up on it, I guess.
DS: You just owe it to the crowd of like, I can’t just expect to say, ‘I’m so great, I won’t even practice, I’ll just go out there and talk about whatever happened in my day.’ One of my biggest complaints I got was, ‘I laughed but it looked like you were just making it up the whole time.’ I’m like, ‘That took me 20 years to figure out how to do that.’ (laughs) It’s so hard to make it look casual, you know what I mean? Like, so, there’s no way I’m thinking of that stuff and it’s that well put together if I haven’t planned it out. You know, you have to know some of it. I can ad lib a few things but it’s tough up there.
CB: Speaking of that stuff, you always take it to another level on any talk show appearance — was there a certain person that was like an inspiration for you? You’re kind of on the level of Martin Short or Robin Williams. I’m sure a lot goes into that.
DS: Yeah, you know, I would say Steve Martin, Martin Short — there’s people that go on there and really take it seriously and just try stuff and try to make an impact, even though there’s no huge gain. Even when I’m not on tour I do Ellen a lot, I do Jimmy Kimmel, I do Fallon, Letterman in the old days, but it got down to where at least I was reliable so they’d say, ‘Hey, we have a fallout, could you get down here because we need someone that knows how to do it,’ you know, and just get some laughs. Sort of makes their job easier, but I am lucky that I can just text and say, ‘Can I come on this week?’ I wanna do this or I gotta promote this or I have a movie coming out,’ and between Ellen and Fallon and all these guys it was a great. I wasn’t that close with Letterman, I only did him probably, you know, a handful of times, but I’ve seen him since, but he was always kind of the one that I looked up to and go, ‘I wanna make him laugh.’
CB: Is there anybody you’re looking forward to getting still or anybody coming up for the podcast?
DS: You know, yeah, on the podcast we were looking forward to Larry David — that took a while to put together.
CB: That was a good one, yeah.
DS: Then the fires screwed it up but he wound up being so funny and was laughing so fucking hard, he was such a good guest. I would like Letterman just because I used to do it and look up to him. I see him out sometimes and I don’t ask because I’d feel like an asshole, but I think he’d be up for it at a certain point. I would love to have Ringo Starr because we had Paul (McCartney). We could have Paul again. We have more questions and could talk to him forever. So nerve-wracking though.
CB: Good lord, yeah.
DS: Yeah, you could imagine like, ‘holy shit.’
CB: (laughs) Yeah.
DS: Who else was on our list the other day? There’s Kristen Wiig. I mean, we’re going to do not as much SNL stuff in the future. We just want to get guests that are fun or interesting and we’ve kind of gone through pretty much the main ones. Kristen’s a big one from that era, just because she’s so great and I saw her at the 50th and I was like, ‘God, I wanna ask her but I’ll just wait.’
CB: Are you sponsored by Koi (Los Angeles restaurant), by chance? (laughs)
DS: We brought up Koi again today because it’s an easy, funny thing to talk about. Because I just did Conan’s podcast (Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend) and he’s like, ‘Me and you and Dana have to go to Koi again.’ (laughing) It’s close to me and Dana and it’s good. And then they tell me, ‘You know how many people come in here looking for you guys?’ (laughs) ‘We’ve heard about this place.’
CB: At the SNL 50th, how did it feel to just be a part of that history and be there for that celebration and that night?
DS: Oh, the best. I mean, the 40th was good, I think the 50th was just more fun for me and getting to do a little jibber jabber in the show, just be part of it, was great. The rehearsals, sneaking through the hallway, no stress, just walking around like, ‘Hey, there’s Blake Lively, ‘hey, there’s Kristen Wiig again.’ You sort of have free reign to talk to anyone and everyone’s nice. I think I flew out and Pedro Pascal was on my plane and that’s a guy I don’t talk to much and Miles Teller was on my flight and I’m like, ‘Oh, hey guys,’ so that was fun. (Noise in the background gets louder) Hold on. Sorry, I’m trying to find someplace noisier.
CB: You’re good, man. I’m in the car too, actually. I’ve heard you talk about bringing movies back to Hollywood. I know Busboys was filmed there — how did that go, do you think it’s possible to do that again?
DS: We did it here, we definitely want (car alarm goes off in the background) What a dick.
CB: [laughs]
DS: We definitely want people to shoot here. Someone was just talking about a reality show and they’re like, ‘Well, we could never do it in LA,’ it’s not even a question. Everyone grew up going, ‘I gotta get to Hollywood,’ you know, ‘I’m a make-up artist, I’m a model, I’m an actor, I’m a writer,’ and they all come here and now it’s like, ‘I can’t just come for the crime and the taxes, I need some upside here.’ That’s the hard part. It’s sunny, it’s nice. That’s what I love. I don’t wanna move. Everybody just says, ‘Just move.’ I go, ‘It’s hard to just move and go someplace where I don’t know anybody.’
CB: Definitely, yeah, for anybody. It’d be nice if that was all one consolidated place again like you said. You could just go there and say, ‘I’ll go to a studio and maybe I’ll get a job.’
DS: We’ve got studios, we’ve got everything we need here — it’s just slowly being farmed out.
CB: Yeah, that’s too bad but that’s cool you did Busboys there, so hopefully that helps some.
DS: Yeah, it just gets the word out like, ‘Hey, we’re fine.’
CB: Nobody really talks about that you did a lot of stuff on Beavis and Butt-Head — how did that come about and what was that experience like?
DS: Mike Judge wound up coming on SNL as a writer and they put him either in our office or next to us. He didn’t come in a lot but he had a desk so we would all just bullshit. We loved Beavis and Butt-Head, so he said, ‘Well, you wanna do a couple, we could get a voice or something?’ and it worked out so I was stoked because I liked him a lot, yeah.
CB: I should also ask, who’s the opener for your tour?
DS: I think Bobby Miyamoto’s back on some and maybe Katherine Blanford, so It’ll be fun to have (them). Those two will be good.
David Spade performs at Taft Theatre at 8 p.m. on June 8. More info: tafttheatre.org.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s May 28 print edition.
This article appears in May 28 – Jun 10, 2025.