To watch
Chattanooga native Mario Tory will be featured on “The Next Level” tonight at 11 on Comedy Central (Comcast channel 39, EPBFI channel 73 in Chattanooga). The Atlanta-based comedian will have a viewing party at Home Slice Pizza, 2000 E. 23rd St. Doors open at 10 p.m. Admission is free.
Though he now calls Atlanta home, comedian Mario Tory wanted to be among family and friends when his half-hour special premieres on Comedy Central as part of Kevin Hart’s new series, “The Next Level.” A viewing party is planned tonight at Home Slice Pizza on East 23rd Street inside the Chatt Inn hotel.
“My dad is from Chattanooga, but my mom is from Rossville. We would jump across the [state] line all the time,” Tory said this week during a media blitz through town to promote the show.
Tory attended Ridgeland High School, graduating in 1998, and later Chattanooga State Community College. He moved to Atlanta shortly after and was working a warehouse job loading trucks when he went to an open-mike night at a comedy club in 2007. Thinking he could do that, he signed up to perform the next weekend.
“It went well,” he said. “Everybody has their ups and downs, and I’ve had mine, but I liked it.”