Tom Hester - Comedian - Producer - Writer

The Eat My Shorts! Audience Award for Best Short Film
A special mention goes to the film Fist Full of Pills by Tom Hester
& Slade Ham (USA, 2005) for so well exemplifying the mandate of
Comedia as a home for stand-up comedians who have written, starred in
or produced their very own big-screen presentations, as well as in recognition
for the exceptional critical and public response it garnered at the festival."

Just For Laughs Comedia Website ©2005

Comics Choice: May 7-11 (Tom Hester)
One of my favorite all-time comedians is returning to Tulsa in May and his name is Tom Hester.

Now, Tom Hester has been called many things: brilliant, controversial, genius, you name it, I prefer to describe his comedy as "Spiritually enlightening." I'm not kidding! You have to see it to believe it. I mean this guy has an elaborate bit about the "Motel 6 pubic hair phenomena." I have seen people come up to Tom Hester before a show and thank him for a joke he told or a performance they remember. They sometimes recite his material back to him. This scene usually ends with the fan saying something like, "You're amazing....you're a genius man, really funny." And he covers such a broad spectrum of topics from Pez candy to politics and everything in-between. His " no sell out" style is an honest, refreshing change from comedians doing overdone hash material. Don't miss this guy. He is the genuine article.

John S. Evans Tulsa Comedy Preview

Austin Chronicle Review
...or maybe the frontier's changed. Maybe now it's a frontier of the mind, and
these folks Ð Tom Hester, Nick Yousef, David Cole, Steven Kendrick and headliner Mack Lindsay, as well as special guest artists Ð are the Lewises and Clarks. So go, get a laugh, do some good and maybe even catch a glimpse of a new frontier.
Austin Chronicle. December 19, 2003

Austin Chronicle Review
"This has been one of the best summers I've had in years," says Tom Hester, who just returned from two weeks headlining at Stand-Up New York, the longest-running comedy club in the city. "The shows went great." That's saying something. Hester should not be a stranger to good shows considering that he is a veteran of Houston's Comedy Workshop, where he learned with the likes of Brett Butler and Bill Hicks, that he's won the title of "Funniest Person in Ausitn"( in 1991); and that two years ago he was putting audiences in the aisles at Montreal's prestigious Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. But performing in New York was a new experience for the comic.

"It was a little intimidating at first, because the crowds are a little different," Hester continues, "They're very very fast paced. You have to hold their attention, otherwise you're just antoher neon sign blinking past." He must have adapted well, David Letterman's "people" saw him and have begun herding Hester through their extensive audition process.

Right now Hester is like a man trapped in a Beckett play, waiting for news on his spec scripts and for a thumbs-up from Letterman while he puts the finishing touches on This is Your Wake-Up Call. "I'm just sweating it out," Hester says, "I'm really just waiting to see what is going to happen with the New York stuff."

Transformations, Austin Chronicle ©1997

HESTERVISION BY ROBERT FAIRES
Local comic Tom Hester is back in Montreal this week for his third appearance in the big Just for Laughs international comedy festival. Unlike his 1995 and 2001 visits, though, he won't be doing stand-up live, at least. But one of his routines serves as the soundtrack for the 10-minute film "A Fist Full of Pills," showing in the fest's Eat My Twisted Shorts program of short films. Hester and fellow Texas comic Slade Ham co-directed "Pills," using trippy visuals to illustrate Hester's hilarious account of being called to mother a bunch of hallucinogenically challenged individuals at a party. (The distinctive look also helps gloss over the film's bare-bones production quality; it was shot over a weekend in Beaumont with friends, including comic Tom Rhodes.) Hester and company hope the screening will lead to meetings with industry types, where they can pitch more such comedy videos and comedy projects for TV.

Austin Chronicle, July 22, 2005