Dick Chudnow

RolesFounder

Richard Chudnow, known as Dick Chudnow, is a Milwaukee-born comedy performer and producer who co-founded the Kentucky Fried Theater comedy troupe at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker, and subsequently founded ComedySportz in Milwaukee in September 1984, establishing a franchised competitive short-form improv format that has grown to more than 25 locations across the United States and internationally. ComedySportz adapted Keith Johnstone's Theatresports competitive structure into a family-friendly American sports-themed format, developing a national franchise network through the Comedy League of America.

Career

Richard Chudnow grew up in Shorewood, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. He attended Shorewood High School and enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he graduated in approximately 1967. During his time at UW-Madison, Chudnow co-founded the Kentucky Fried Theater comedy troupe with fellow students Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker. Initial performances were planned for February 1971 above the Daisy Cafe on West Washington Avenue in Madison, but a building inspector shut down the venue before opening. Union South provided an early performance space as the troupe established itself.

In 1972, the Kentucky Fried Theater relocated to Los Angeles, where the company operated a four-year stage residency from a rented warehouse in West Los Angeles. Chudnow eventually grew uncomfortable with the performance spotlight, sold his rights in the Kentucky Fried Theater material to his partners (Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker), and returned to Wisconsin. The Kentucky Fried Theater material was later adapted by ZAZ into The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977, directed by John Landis), and the trio subsequently created Airplane! (1980) and The Naked Gun series. Chudnow did not have writing credits on these film projects.

Chudnow returned to Milwaukee around 1982. In September 1984, he co-founded ComedySportz at Kalt's Restaurant on Oakland Avenue in Milwaukee, alongside Karen Kolberg, Bob Orvis, and Brian Green. The ComedySportz format drew explicitly on Keith Johnstone's Theatresports competitive improv structure but translated it into American sports aesthetics: two teams compete in colored jerseys before an audience that votes on winners, with a referee officiating, a family-friendly foul system (including a brown paper bag penalty for profanity), and audience-judged scoring. The organization originally operated under the name TheaterSportz, renaming itself ComedySportz in 1987 to avoid trademark conflicts with Johnstone's organization.

In 1985, the first ComedySportz affiliate opened in Madison, Wisconsin, establishing the franchise model. The Los Angeles franchise launched in 1988, and the inaugural Comedy League of America National Tournament was held that year with ten competing teams. ComedySportz Manchester opened in 2001 as the first international location. A dedicated Milwaukee arena at 420 South 1st Street opened in 2004. By 2025, CSz Worldwide operated more than 25 franchises.

In 1996, Chudnow co-wrote Spy Hard, a parody film starring Leslie Nielsen. He married actress Jennifer Rupp in approximately 1988; they have a son named Nick. Notable alumni of the ComedySportz system include Jason Sudeikis, Chris Tallman, and Jonathan Mangum.

Historical Context

Dick Chudnow's two founding acts, the Kentucky Fried Theater and ComedySportz, represent opposite ends of the comedy production spectrum he worked across during a career spanning from the early 1970s through the 2000s. The Kentucky Fried Theater was an experiment in live satirical sketch comedy at a period when the form's institutional infrastructure was limited to Second City in Chicago and a handful of smaller venues; its later alumni, through the ZAZ partnership, became responsible for the most commercially successful American comedy film genre of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

ComedySportz occupied a different position in the history of organized improv. Where iO Chicago and Second City built their training models around workshop instruction leading to ensemble performance, and where Keith Johnstone's Theatresports had been developed as an artistic and pedagogical tool, ComedySportz developed the franchise model that made competitive short-form improv available to regional markets outside the major entertainment cities. The format's family-friendly approach, its sports-league aesthetics, and its franchise structure enabled the establishment of ComedySportz ensembles in cities where other improv training institutions had no presence.

The Comedy League of America tournament structure, launched in 1988, created a national competitive infrastructure that linked affiliated companies across the country and provided a regular context for inter-company performance exchange. This model anticipated the regional tournament structures that would later develop within other short-form improv organizations and contributed to the normalization of competitive improv as a professional performance category outside the major metropolitan markets.

Legacy

Dick Chudnow's ComedySportz franchise is the primary institutional vehicle through which the competitive short-form improv format reached regional American markets during the 1980s and 1990s. The more than 25 locations operating under CSz Worldwide as of 2025 represent a sustained deployment of the Theatresports competitive model across a geographical range that the original Theatresports organization and iO Chicago's franchise efforts did not reach at comparable scale.

The Kentucky Fried Theater's alumni relationship to ZAZ, whose subsequent work on Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and related film projects defined American parody comedy for a generation, places Chudnow's co-founding of that troupe within a lineage whose influence on American film comedy was commercially enormous, even though his own contribution ended before the major productions. His sale of his KFT rights to his partners created the conditions under which those projects were able to develop.

Notable performers who came through the ComedySportz system include Jason Sudeikis, Chris Tallman, and Jonathan Mangum, documenting the organization's role as a training ground for performers who subsequently moved into major television careers from regional improv contexts rather than from Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles institutions.

Early Life and Training

Richard Chudnow grew up in Shorewood, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. He attended Shorewood High School and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in approximately 1967.