Glazer: World’s Nicest Guy, KC Export Rob Riggle Plays Bad Guy in 21 Jump Street

Rob Riggle playing a bad guy?

It’s true. The KC export’s new movie, 21 Jump Street has him cast as an evil teacher with a secret. It’s a take off from the old TV series as noted in Jack’s review below.

Rob’s one of several Stanford’s alums who’ve had nice Hollywood careers. Guess what? Not all of these stars were even comics at Stanford’s. At least not at first.

Rob Riggle came to do his first stand-up with us a couple years ago. He was best known for his role on The Daily Show with Live From Baghdad, It’s Rob Riggle. 

Rob was an officer in the Marine Corps.

It was there, not so much at Stanford’s, where he began doing comedy. When I met Rob at the club he reminded Jeff and I he’d worked the door at Stanford’s in Westport towards the end of his career at KU.

Rob hadn’t done much standup yet, at least not in front of a regular audience like at the club. This was his first time on stage with a one hour act in front of a hometown crowd that included his wife, some family and Jason Sudeikis parents.

And Rob did a nice job.

We did the radio tour, including of course Johnny Dare‘s show, and Riggle told me some stories about his days at Stanford’s 20 years earlier. He was just such a warm, nice person, you had to pull for the guy.

We had a few other future stars who started their careers right in Westport.

Arliss Howard, Full Metal Jacket and Jurassic Park 2. Arliss was a bartender for four or five years. He did some Improv at the club, but no real standup. We worked up a bit about me being a Jew he was converting me to Jesus. He later married Debra Winger.

Eddie Griffin started out as a bus boy/waiter. He later did stand up at Stanford’s, but only on open mic night. He eventually played the club as a comic in the early 2000’s. Louie Anderson was also a Stanford’s guy. David Naster landed him for us to emcee and he went on to Hollywood and never looked back.

Of course there was Sinbad. My dad Stan was his pal, as was Naster. In fact David and Sinbad lived together for a period in KC. Sinbad was a doorman, driver – you name it. Finally he made it as a standup comic at the club, was discovered there by Star Search, won and the rest is history.

Riggle might be the nicest of all the former Stanford’s folks.

He came back a year after his first shot on stage with us at Legends. This time he did five shows, sold out and was on it.  He just has that charm. This past year Rob was shooting 21 Jump Street (yes, Johnny Depp has a cameo) and tried to do a Sunday night at Stanford’s. But he had to cancel because the movie needed him to stay in New Orleans and work.

Rob and crew will be back for their charity and the BIG SLICK POKER Tournament in KC this summer.

Always great to see a nice guy doing so well.