Liz Splatt

2024’s Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin, Liz Splatt, brings a notice­able ener­gy to the stage, a rapid-fire deliv­ery cou­pled with can­did, often ​“dirty,” obser­va­tions. The Dal­las-native-turned-Austin-stand­out moves with a cer­tain rest­less momen­tum, whether per­form­ing stand-up or recount­ing her expe­ri­ences. She’s appeared numer­ous times on the influ­en­tial pod­cast *Kill Tony*, and is slat­ed for her debut at the 2025 Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy fes­ti­val. Yet, a con­ver­sa­tion with Splatt reveals her path was­n’t so much chart­ed, as it was encoun­tered, dri­ven by a grow­ing accep­tance of the unpredictable.

Splatt’s ori­gin sto­ry does­n’t involve ear­ly the­atri­cal ambi­tions. Grow­ing up in Dal­las — ​“prop­er, no sub­urb shit,” she insists — her expo­sure to per­for­mance art was lim­it­ed, save for her moth­er’s Kathy Grif­fin fan­dom. Splat­t’s per­for­mance space was more sit­u­a­tion­al, par­tic­u­lar­ly in school where she nav­i­gat­ed dyslex­ia and ADD. Humor became less a call­ing and more a use­ful tool to enable Splatt to be more of her real self, more of the time.

It wasn’t until col­lege, first at UTSA then Uni­ver­si­ty of North Texas, that stand-up com­e­dy became a tan­gi­ble idea, prompt­ed by a per­sis­tent friend. ​“She was just say­ing like, you need to do stand up. Like you talk in bits,” Splatt recalls. An ear­ly attempt at slam poet­ry served as a ten­ta­tive step before she braved an open mic at a Den­ton gas sta­tion. The debut was­n’t exact­ly seam­less — involv­ing a song and a sparse, par­tial­ly dis­tract­ed audi­ence — but it ignit­ed some­thing. ​“It just made me feel like excit­ed to try some­thing and like I can I think I can get good at this, you know?”

The Den­ton com­e­dy scene, fea­tur­ing mics at Killer’s Tacos and Dusty’s (known for 10-minute sets and afford­able wings), served as her ini­tial prov­ing ground. Encour­aged by peers like Tony Casil­las, she began hon­ing longer mate­r­i­al and learn­ing the local land­scape. This peri­od also coin­cid­ed with a sig­nif­i­cant per­son­al deci­sion: observ­ing the com­e­dy scene’s rela­tion­ship with alco­hol, Splatt chose sobri­ety, fueled by a desire to ded­i­cate her­self ful­ly to stand-up. ​“I real­ly think if it weren’t for stand up, I would have nev­er cared about some­thing enough to quit drink­ing,” she states.

Feel­ing she had reached a lim­it in the Dal­las scene, which she per­ceived as favor­ing clean­er acts (“they want­ed you to be a clean com­ic in order to do open­ing spots… I knew that I was at kind of a plateau”), a com­bi­na­tion of cir­cum­stances — grad­u­a­tion, a breakup, and prac­ti­cal advice from her moth­er (“you don’t need to move with any­body. Like you can just move”) — led her to Austin. The city’s com­e­dy pro­file was ris­ing, part­ly due to the relo­ca­tion of Joe Rogan and the *Kill Tony* show, sug­gest­ing a dif­fer­ent set of possibilities.

Splatt’s tra­jec­to­ry in Austin often seems char­ac­ter­ized by a kind of ben­e­fi­cial hap­pen­stance, a point she acknowl­edges fre­quent­ly. Secur­ing a posi­tion as an orig­i­nal ​“door guy” at Rogan’s Com­e­dy Moth­er­ship club was unex­pect­ed. She was­n’t ful­ly aware of the Com­e­dy Store’s his­tor­i­cal door guy sys­tem or the like­li­hood of local comics land­ing such roles. The audi­tion invi­ta­tion, she notes, felt like receiv­ing ​“a let­ter from Hog­warts.” This pat­tern of oppor­tu­ni­ty aris­ing some­what inci­den­tal­ly has become a recur­ring theme.

Her FPIA vic­to­ry serves as a prime exam­ple. Splatt entered the 2024 com­pe­ti­tion pri­mar­i­ly aim­ing to per­form at Cap City and catch the book­ers’ atten­tion for future fea­ture work. She admits ini­tial skep­ti­cism about the entry fee (“I kind of felt like it’s a lit­tle bit of a scam”) and claims igno­rance of the cash prize until mid­way through the con­test. The semi-finals includ­ed a deter­mined, if ulti­mate­ly futile, attempt to trade a drink tick­et for falafel – an endeav­or dri­ven as much by a desire to stick to her guns, as the need for pre-set sustenance.

Despite the lack of falafel (“I guess that’s why we’re like 86. Like we don’t have any falafel,” accord­ing to the bar­tender) and Splat­t’s own assess­ment of her semi-final set as flawed due to a missed line (“It’s cuz I don’t have any pro­tein in my sys­tem”), she advanced. Her finals per­for­mance was strong, secur­ing the $3,000 prize and the FPIA title. Her imme­di­ate on-stage acknowl­edge­ment: ​“I’ve been hav­ing diar­rhea all day. So thank you guys so much.” Which feels appro­pri­ate­ly on-brand.

Even with grow­ing recog­ni­tion and respon­si­bil­i­ties, like co-host­ing the Wednes­day vari­ety show ​“The Absolute Show” at Creek and the Cave with Lucas McCrary, Splatt dis­cuss­es the inher­ent con­flict between com­e­dy as a career and com­e­dy as a cre­ative pur­suit. After a peri­od focused on max­i­miz­ing stage appear­ances, she’s mind­ful of need­ing to nur­ture the artis­tic side to pre­vent burnout and main­tain the core moti­va­tion of self-expression.

For Liz Splatt, nav­i­gat­ing her career appears less about fol­low­ing a rigid plan and more about respond­ing to oppor­tu­ni­ties while stay­ing true to her expres­sive instincts. From her ear­ly days find­ing her voice in the Den­ton and Dal­las scenes [15, 19] to mak­ing the move to Austin and find­ing unex­pect­ed roles like becom­ing an orig­i­nal door guy at the Com­e­dy Moth­er­ship, her jour­ney has been one of embrac­ing ben­e­fi­cial hap­pen­stance. Her recent vic­to­ry as 2024’s Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin, a con­test she entered pri­mar­i­ly for stage time with­out ini­tial­ly know­ing there was prize mon­ey, per­fect­ly exem­pli­fies this pat­tern. This embrace of the unpre­dictable is per­haps best cap­tured when asked to describe her future in a sin­gle word. Her choice, ​“unknown,” reflects not just uncer­tain­ty, but a pref­er­ence for it: ​“Hope­ful­ly. I don’t want to know. That’s the best part.” It feels fit­ting, then, to cel­e­brate this unique path and the excit­ing, unknown future ahead as this arti­cle is pub­lished on her birthday.

Fol­low Liz

• Link­tree — link​tr​.ee/​c​o​v​e​r​e​d​inliz
• Tik­Tok — @coveredinliz
• YouTube — youtube​.com/​@​c​o​v​e​r​e​d​inliz
  • Absolute Show — youtube​.com/​@​a​b​s​o​l​u​t​e​s​h​owatx
• Insta­gram — @coveredinliz
  • Absolute Show — @absoluteshowatx
• Face­book — face​book​.com/​l​i​z​s​p​l​a​t​t​c​omedy
  
• X — @coveredinliz
• Do 512 — do512​.com/​a​r​t​i​s​t​s​/​l​i​z​-​s​platt
• Only­Fans — @coveredinliz

Liz can be seen and heard:

• LMAOF Com­e­dy Special
• Reg­u­lar on Kill Tony
• Standup on The Spot
• Absolute Show — Co-host with Lukas McCrary, Wednes­days, 8pm at The Creek and the Cave
• 2025 Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Festival