hide caption Ken Jeong Tommy Garcia/Provided by the artist Jeong's first taste of comedy began with a mock-male beauty competition in high school called the "Mr. Buccaneer Pageant." "That was where I discovered my own comedy bug," Jeong told NPR's Ask Me Another host, Ophira Eisenberg. "I was posing like Arnold Schwarzenegger and just doing all these things and I got a standing O. And I ended up singing a Lionel Richie song, The Commodores' 'Three Times a Lady' on piano, and that got another standing O." After college, Jeong moved to Los Angeles and practiced medicine for several years as a physician of internal medicine. At the same time, he performed regularly at The Improv and Laugh Factory comedy clubs.