Internet Sensational Grandma

“Granny gone viral” is Jeanne Robertson’s handle these days. That’s what a TV station dubbed her a decade ago when her collection of humorous, slice-of-life observations first blew up the internet. Just last Monday, her YouTube channel logged its 67 millionth view.

The stylish, 6’2” former Miss Congeniality brings her class act to the Fox Tucson Theatre at 7 p.m., Friday, March 29.

“I was in my 60s when I embraced the internet,” she says. Now 75, she says she owes her continuing success online, and in her theater show, to “clean, family appropriate stories that are humorous.”

Don’t call her a comedian. She may crack up a crowd, but until the internet found her, she had never stepped foot in a comedy venue. She’s plied her humor as a corporate guest speaker and, for a time, even presided over the National Speaker’s Association. She says that in the corporate world, the word “comedian” scares them to death.”

Her day job is not motivational training or workshops. She swoops in to break up an eight-hour drag of conference sessions with a rib shaking luncheon or dinner talk, dressed in spike heels and pearls.

Most often, she says, her stories show how humor can be an essential skill for sanity and success—“to look for the humor in everyday situations, to laugh at yourself and to influence the people around you to keep a sense of humor.”

And how does she find humor in everyday life? “I have made it a priority to look for humor every day. I get up around 5 a.m. and start looking for speech material. I believe people find pretty much what they’re looking for. There are people who never try to find the humor. Everything is negative. Maybe they just never enjoy what they do.”

But finding the humor is just a start. The homey, hilarious stories Robertson crafts around her finds are what’s propelled her to influencer status on the internet and turned a popular convention presenter into a “humorist” selling out packed houses.

Fun With Conspiracy Theories

Tin Foil Hat with Sam Tripoli comes to 191 Toole at 8 p.m., Saturday, March 29. In a world where daily headlines can’t possibly be real, conspiracy theories are almost comic relief. The Tin Foil Hat podcast gives our blown minds permission to laugh at the genuinely ludicrous.