DAVENPORT, Iowa (WQAD)—
Did you hear the one about the out-of-work comic who does stand-up on the off-ramp of Interstate 74?No joke.
Don Hepner has taken his stand-up literally "on the road," telling jokes in traffic for 50-cents apiece.
''Hey, get your jokes here, 50-cents, two for $1," the 60-something comedian yelled from his perch at I-74 and 53rd Street in Davenport on Thursday.
Hepner said he took out a panhandler's license with the city and is making close to $20 an hour, but said it's not all about the money. He came up with the idea after Penguin's, a local comedy club in the Quad Cities, shut down earlier this year.
"There isn't any place in the area for us to do comedy, so I said, 'I'll go up and do it on the off-ramp,'" Hepner said. "So I call myself 'The Off-ramp Comic."
As with any comedian, it's all about the timing. In Hepner's case, that's traffic lights.
"I've got it timed," he said. "The red light lasts 90 seconds. The green light lasts 30 seconds. I've got 90 seconds to make my money."
Hepner said he keeps the jokes quick and family-friendly.
"I gave my mom a milk-bath,'' Hepner said to a giggling young girl in the backseat of an SUV. "And the cow sat on her."
It can be a tough crowd.
''I also get some drive-by heckling,'' he joked.
But most motorists driving up on Hepner at the intersection are in the mood for a quick one-liner.
"The way the economy is right now, everybody needs a little laughter in their life," one driver who forked over a buck said.
Hepner said he was on the road doing stand-up for 13 years, had been on the old Gong Show eight times, and acts in local productions at Circa 21 Theater in Rock Island.
But his heart is in comedy.
heart And he's happy to headline the off-ramp.
"I'm doing this because I want to tell jokes," he said.
