Porky’s Comedy Club, inside Jimmy Bear’s BBQ at 4247 13th Street (if you can find Tractor Supply, you can find it), will be celebrating its second anniversary in 2020 for, well, awhile.

The year gets off to a bang when Michael Winslow of the Police Academy movies, the Mel Brooks classic Spaceballs and known as The Man of 10,000 Sound Effects, comes to the comedy club-slash-restaurant for a Jan. 3-4 engagement. Tickets are available at Porkyscomedyclub.com.

Vinny Barber, the man behind Jimmy Bear’s, and Eric Godfrey, former stand-up comic and now athletic director at St. Cloud High School, partnered in the venture and opened it on March 2018. It’s still Osceola County’s only free-standing comedy club, with shows every other weekend.

Godfrey and Barber used to tour together on the comedy circuit in the late 1980’s and early ’90s, and reunited in St. Cloud after 25 years.

“This guy played one of the worst practical jokes on me, ever,” Godfrey said of Barber (in a funny story you can find here on video at the Positively Osceola Facebook page).

Said Barber: “I’d been dreaming about (running a comedy club) for years.”

The pair have, and will for their however-long 2020 anniversary celebration, bring in nationally-known acts who wouldn’t normally come to Central Florida.

“Comics want to be in Central Florida. It’s the place to be. They’ll come in after they’ve worked the cruise ships,” Barber said. “They come for Friday and Saturday then we take them back to the port on Sunday. It really works and our patrons benefit from being able to see the best in comedy.”

They’re working on setting up holiday shows for groups, where one price per person gets them into the show and a buffet. We;’ll share that info as soon as we recieve it…. So, make sure to support Porky’s Comedy Club in St. Cloud, as we ll as Jimmy Bear’s Barbecue. They are both, along with Vinny Barber and Eric Godfrey, making a Positive Difference in Osceola County!