Madison Comic Antoine McNeail Shoots for the National Stage: Humor Deeply Rooted in Humanity (Part 2 of 2)
Antoine McNeail
by Jonathan Gramling
When I interviewed Antoine McNeail, a Madison-honed comic, at the Urban League offices, it seemed like a straight-up interview, but it always felt that comedy lurked just beneath the surface, like there was some instantaneous combustion of laughter ready to explode.
For the past 15 years, McNeail has been doing his comedic thing, first at the open mic at the Comedy Club on State Street and recently at the LA Chocolate Sundaes Comedy Show.
While some comedians rely on caustic remarks and negative put-downs of people, McNeail is committed to comedy that uplifts or provides insight into everyday life, especially his own in a self-deprecating way
“I tell people, ‘Hey, I’m in my third trimester,’” McNeail said referring to his weight. “And then I will tell a bunch of other jokes from there. I would rather talk about me and my family than try to make someone feel little about themselves.”
And within that context, pretty much everything is up for grabs.
“I don’t know if I have favorite material,” McNeail said. “I am a fan of what I call the Truth, hiding truth in comedy. I could talk about parenting because obviously, I had my first son when I was 15-years old. I tell people that I had my son so early, one time I was skipping school and I looked up and he was skipping school too. Why is my son skipping school with me? Because we grew up around the same age. That didn’t happen, but that’s the joke. Imagine both the parent and the child going to a school.
Technically, my son and I were born in the same generation. We’re Millennials. We’re the same generation. I like to talk about, when it comes to comedy, family. That’s one of my favorite things. I like to talk about parenting, the difference between Black and White, people and culture, pop culture, church, whatever comes to mind. I talk about music and the state of music and where we are at right now.”
McNeail is a little reluctant to talk politics and religion.
“I try to stay away from politics because I don’t want to get into a screaming and yelling match,” McNeail said. “But I will maybe make a joke about religion or Christianity or church and what that looks like. Sometimes it’s well-received. But I just have to be able to tell the joke where it’s not judgmental or personal. I tell crazy stuff. Like in my mind, I’ll hear something and I will think, ‘What’s the wildest way to tell this story?’ And I will tell the story, ‘Oh, I had to stop smoking weed and reading the Bible at the same time. The Bible became a murder mystery to me.’ None of that ever happened. But the way I tell the story, it’s like something that could happen. I never smoke weed or read the Bible, but it’s the idea of something. The best comedy to me is when you say, ‘Did that really happen? Is that true?’ I’ll tell jokes in such a way that people believe that it is true.”
McNeail is not a shoot-from-the-hip comedian. He is professional, staging what he is going to say before he sets foot on stage and has to deal with a crowd that may or may not be with him as he begins his show.
“98 percent of my act is pre-planned,” McNeail said. “The Comedy Club on State is one of the top-15 comedy clubs in the nation. And I don’t want to go up to that show putzing around. I don’t want to go up to their show trying to figure things out while I am on the stage. When I go there, I want to say, ‘These are the jokes that I want to do. I want to make sure that I’ve timed my material.’ And then if someone says something or a different idea pops into my head or the crowd reacts a certain way, then I will probably adjust and tweak on the fly. I think there was probably one time out of 12 years in me doing comedy that I didn’t have any material. Yes, you can be funny. But if you have 300 people looking at you, it’s not the time to do a ‘What did I do today?’ I’m not willing to gamble.”
McNeail’s discipline and innate humor has earned him recognition.
“I’ve been voted ‘Madison’s Best of Comedians’ for Best of Madison 2023 and 2025,” McNeail said. “I won Enchanting Entertainer and Best Black Entertainer with the Madison Black Chamber of Commerce for 2020 and 2024. In 2019, I won Madison’s Favorite Comedian with Isthmus. I have a bunch of Accolades to back up that I’m their guy.”
While McNeail has always dreamed of doing comedy for a living, he is also committed to family and his own children.
“The goal is to do it full-time because a lot of full-time deals with travel,” McNeail said. “Because I’ve been a father and taken my daughter to school back and forth, day-in and day-out and just raising her — she’s 14-years-old now — hasn’t allowed me to travel. A lot of comedians have that as a regret, that they didn’t spend time with their children. And now they are famous. Now they are big and they don’t know their kids. They have that regret. So for me to be 44-years-old right now, my daughter’s getting a little bit more mature. She wants to spend time with her mom and her friends. Now I have the luxury to go and travel a little bit more.”
While McNeail has enjoyed the local comedy circuit and doing The Morning Buzz on WORT-FM with Tara Wilhelmi, McNeail is also eager to hit the big time.
“Yes, the LA Chocolate Sundaes Comedy Show was a big deal in my career,” McNeail emphasized. “Because it is one of the number one urban comedy spots in the United States. I'm already practicing at one of the top fifteen comedy clubs in the United States now. It also lets me know that my material is transferable and universal. It is not just local or regional. The Chocolate Sundae audition is something that many comics have to wait for maybe 5-7 years before they are booked. I waited my time and I did it well enough at the ‘first impressions’ that I was able to be invited back in the future to the ‘Graduate’ spot with hopes to become a regular, feature and or headliner, at a top premier comedy club in L.A.”
Antoine McNeail is ready for the big-time. It’s only a matter of time.