Big Jay Oakerson just might be the busiest man in showbiz. He’s a touring stand-up comic, and he appears on screens big and small: Big Jay was privy to JLo’s iconic stripper dance as a deejay in the movie Hustlers and has regularly riffed with comedy superstars on TV shows including Louie, Inside Amy Schumer and Comedy Underground With Dave Attell. Plus, the big man does a weekly radio show (The Bonfire on Comedy Central Radio, with comedian Robert Kelly) and a couple podcasts, including The SDR (Sex, Drugs & Rock N Roll) Show with Ralph Sutton and, of course, Legion of Skanks, aka “the most offensive podcast on Earth.” After releasing his newest comedy special, Dog Belly, Big Jay plopped down to talk with HUSTLER about dancing at kids’ birthday parties in the Philadelphia ghetto, always pushing the envelope onstage and that special place he has in his heart for our very own Beaver Hunt.
HUSTLER: We’ve been talking about Kerryn Feehan, a comic who got pretty naked in our magazine, so the question now is, would you get nude for money?
BIG JAY OAKERSON: Naaaah.
A lot of money?
Hmm. Naaah. I mean, I was on the Louie show every season. The third season I wasn’t able to do much because I was out of town. Thank God, because there was a storm episode, and I guess they wanted a fat guy in his underwear running through the rain. Apparently that character made them think of me? [Laughs.] But I was like, “Naahhh.” I think I bring more to the table than just being the fat guy.
I sorta did it once. I did a thing in a series of Halls Mentho-Lyptus commercials where someone feels sick and then takes a Halls. The steam comes over the screen, and then you see them doing the activity they said they couldn’t do. Mine was like, “Dad, I thought we were going to the football game,” but the father’s like, “I dunno. I feel sick.” But then he takes the Halls and is cured, and I’m in there at the football game, and I’m sitting there on the sideline, shirtless, painted all green except for the S of their made-up team on my chest—that’s flesh-colored. I just sat in that chair all day, heavier than I am now, and it was awkward and uncomfortable. If the ad came out, I mighta made 35 grand in residuals or something, but it didn’t come out, so all I ever got paid was 300 bucks, the sitting day fee. Plus, after I showered, my girlfriend goes, “What the hell is that?” and I look down to see that I had an S sunburned right across my chest.
