"Funniest Comedian PACO ERHARD vs FELIPE ESPARZA"
PACO ERHARD
Paco Erhard (born Erhard Hübener on July 16, 1975) is a German stand-up comedian, writer, and producer. He is best known for touring the worldwide, English-language comedy festival circuit. Erhard was born in Munich, Germany on July 16, 1975. He was named after his great-grandfather Erhard Hübener, who was the first Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt. Erhard is best known for his first solo show, 5-Step Guide to Being German, which premiered in 2011 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He has also performed a variation of the original called 5-Step Guide to Being German 2.0. Both shows have received critical acclaim, sold out at comedy festivals around the world, and have been named one of the top shows in several festivals. 5-Step Guide to Being German was nominated for a Perth Fringe World Best Comedy Award in 2013. 5-Step Guide to Being German 2.0 won the Pick of the Fringe award in the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival. Both versions of the show are still touring. Erhard is well-traveled and has lived internationally for many years. Inspired by the writings of Jack Kerouac, he hitchhiked out of Germany in 2000, traveling the world and living in Italy, Spain, and the UK. While in Spain, he acquired the nickname "Paco" from a neighbor, which inspired his stage name. Inspired by his work as a comedy MC for British tourists in Tenerife, Erhard moved to London in 2009 to pursue stand-up comedy full-time.
Statistics for this Xoptio
FELIPE ESPARZA
Felipe Esparza is a Mexican born American stand-up comedian and actor. He began performing stand-up in 1994. He won Last Comic Standing in 2010. Esparza has hosted a weekly podcast called What's Up Fool? since 2014. Felipe Esparza was born in Sinaloa, Mexico. He lived on his mother's family's ranch in Sinaloa before moving with his family to live with his aunt in Tijuana, where they lived for about two years. His father had left the family to go to the United States alone. Eventually, in the years prior to Reagan's Amnesty, Esparza illegally immigrated with his two brothers and his mother to the United States, traveling in the car of a "coyote" smuggler. During the trip, they were stopped at a checkpoint in San Clemente, California and he was held in a holding cell with his brothers, separate from their mother for a short period of time. The family was deported. They attempted the trip again, but were stopped and deported again. They tried a third time, using passports of cousins who lived in California. They changed cars twice and were driven to Carson, California. They were then moved to the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, where his father was living. Esparza was raised in the Aliso Village housing projects of Boyle Heights.He attended Theodore Roosevelt High School. Esparza began performing stand-up in 1994 after a stint in drug rehab. He credits Greg Boyle for convincing him to go into rehab. Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang intervention and rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. In rehab Esparza was asked to set five goals to focus on for his recovery. One of his goals was to be a professional stand-up comic. He checked out books from the library on writing comedy, and rented videotapes. He found open-mic nights through the LA Weekly to practice his comedy routine. He started at underground clubs and coffee houses. He won Last Comic Standing in 2010.