There’s nobody Carlos Mencia won’t skewer.
Black, white. Hispanic, Anglo. Gay, Christian, Muslim. His Comedy Central show, “Mind of Mencia,” slams them all.
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So it’s no surprise that the Honduran-American comedian raised in an East L.A. housing project is joking about why Hispanics sometimes are compelled to choose the most Anglo-sounding repairman in the phone book.
“I had that experience with my fridge. It was a huge Sub-Zero. There was something wrong with it, and my brother said, ‘I know a guy.’ And I was like, ‘Bro. No, I want some guy to come here and say there’s something wrong with the computer, and it’s gonna cost a [boat]load of money to replace, but it’s gonna be under warranty for a year after that.’ My brother’s friend would have just blown on it or something.”
Mencia, 39, is not so uptight that he can’t see the humor in certain cultural broad strokes.
What Mencia won’t do, he says, is take one of the many movie roles he has been offered in which he would play the worst stereotype of all — a Hispanic valet parking attendant who adds nothing to the story.
Somehow, playing a giant-mustachioed Mexican who works at a south-of-the-border resort in “The Heartbreak Kid,” opening Friday, seemed a major step up.
In the latest Farrelly brothers movie, starring Ben Stiller, Mencia plays the strongly accented Tito Hernandez, a hotel employee who ultimately has everybody’s number.
“I grew up with guys like Tito,” says Mencia, the 17th of 18 children. “Guys who live in the ghetto, but they have a $10,000 plasma TV in their living room. You know they didn’t steal it, but what’s up with that? What it is, is that he’s a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.”