Dentist by day, comic by night

For comedian Jimmy Earll, everyday life -- from his Filipino family and Canadian upbringing to his 18-year marriage and two kids -- provides plenty of fodder for his standup routines. But for his alter ego -- a practicing dentist in an underserved county in Northern California -- helping families in need is no laughing matter.

"I've only been in Yuba County since last June, but we've made great progress," especially with the region's large Hmong population, Earll told DrBicuspid.com (out of respect for his patients and his practice, he asked that only his stage name be used for this article). "Making someone laugh is fun, but this is health and healthcare."

Earll did not set out to be either a dentist or a comic. Born in Montreal, Canada, and raised in Vancouver, he was premed until his third year of college when he realized medicine was not his calling. He switched to dentistry and quickly discovered it was a good fit.

"The marriage of dentistry and my personality and my creative side really came together," he said.

Even so, Earll decided to take a year off from school and move back to Toronto with a friend. They started doing open mic nights at a club called Yuk-Yuks, and Earll discovered he had a knack for comedy as well as dentistry. He returned to Loma Linda University and, by 1993, had graduated and opened a dental practice in Phoenix, AZ.

"I had a family practice, and I loved doing veneers and cosmetics," Earll said. "But for some reason, I worked really well with kids, too. They don't bother me. They just need patience and to have things explained to them."

Who is that masked man? "Jimmy Earll" -- a practicing dentist in the underserved Yuba-Sutter area of Northern California -- says his stand-up comedy is just a hobby.

Just a hobby

For more than a decade, Earll did no stand-up. Then three years ago, his wife told him he needed to find a hobby -- "She said, 'Go do that comedy thingy again,' " he said, laughing -- and he signed up for an open mic night in Scottsdale, AZ.

"It was great because the owner took me under his wing," Earll said. "That gesture relaunched the whole comedy thing for me."

By the time he moved to California in mid-2008, he was doing stand-up all over the U.S. and Canada. The largest crowd he has so far performed in front of was 1,500, when he opened for fellow Filipino comedian Rex Navarrete in October.

Surprisingly, even after 15 years in the dental business, Earll keeps his comedy and his day job separate.

"I just think of the lady I'm doing implants on, and that I'm going to get $9,000 to $10,000 for that work -- the last thing she needs to hear is that I'm doing sex jokes on the weekends," he said. "But some of the stuff that happens in our lives, some of the hot stuff that goes on in the bathroom and the bedroom, is hilarious, and people seem to laugh when I talk about it."

The key to his comic success, he added, is honesty.

"If you do comedy, and people have a hunch that you are lying, you will lose them," Earll said. "One night I was performing and forgot to wear my wedding band, and I start talking about being married 18 years and a woman in the crowd yells out, 'Where's your wedding ring?' and that was it -- I lost them. You have to be very honest and organic with your audience. They are really perceptive."

So far his jokes have steered clear of his patients and his profession -- although he admits that were he ever to be invited to perform at a dental convention, "I will unleash my stories on the dental world."

Jimmy Earll, on the steps of the mobile dental van he mans in Yuba County, CA.

Like the time when he was first practicing, as an associate in Phoenix. "This guy comes in, I think he was literally one of the first 20 patients I ever saw, and he had this 5-inch nostril hair sticking out, and I could not focus," Earll said. "I tried for 20 minutes, doing a composite filling, and I just couldn't concentrate. I mean, this was the longest nose hair you have ever seen! So finally, I politely asked the gentleman if I could snip the hair and he let me. And he was so nonchalant I almost thought he grew that thing, cared for it, nurtured it on purpose! It was the nastiest, most distracting thing I have ever seen."

While Earll works hard to keep his two lives separate, there is some inevitable overlap. He has learned, for example, that humor can be a valuable tool for a dentist.

"The majority of people who come in to a dental office have anxiety, and, luckily, I am able to use my humor to ease that relationship and get them to trust me," he said. "A gentle touch on the shoulder or arm, appropriate touch, and a little humor -- I think it really helps."

Earll regularly visits schools and other facilities throughout Yuba County via a mobile dental van, working with families from diverse cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. And as much fun as he is having with comedy these days, the economic realities of the region cannot be ignored, he said.

"What has really hurt this area is the California budget," Earll said. "A lot of communities around here have dropped Medi-Cal, just when more people are signing up because of losing their jobs. So it is a horrible void out here."

A cavity, if you will, that humor alone cannot fill.