MN Reads: How Minnesota Became a Hot Spot for Stand Up Comedy Patrick Strait is the author of " Louie Anderson, Jeff Gerbino started it all in the late 1970s in Minneapolis. At that point, there really wasn't a stand-up comedy scene. People had maybe seen some stand-up on Johnny Carson or Bob Hope, but there really weren't comedy clubs or bars that were doing regular stand-up comedy shows, so seeing a stand-up comedy was really rare. They started telling their jokes at a Minneapolis dive bar called Mickey Finn's before people know what a comedy club was. It wasn't a comedy club, it was a bar, a union bar, and these guys were out there trying to fight for attention. There were union guys who just had a long day, they just wanted to drink and relax and chat, they didn't want a bunch of 20 something guys making jokes at them.