Christian comedian, Dan Rupple.

he Christian community knows Dan Rupple as the funnyman behind Isaac Air Freight. But in mainstream circles, people know him for being the supervising producer of TV’s “The Price is Right” and the “Late Show with David Letterman.” In both areas, he’s touched people’s lives.

When Chonda Pierce, a comedian based in Nashville, Tenn., decided to host a gathering of fellow Christian comedians at her farm in 2002, she knew one person in particular needed to be there. She placed a call to Dan, “the father of Christian comedy,” asking him to speak to the assembled comedians. The gathering gave birth to the Christian Comedy Association, and the founding members elected Dan as its first president.

Going back in time, Dan realizes he was funny at about age 5, when his wordplays would crack up his 10-year-old brother and his friends. That made him happy, because his goal was to grow up and be just like the TV character Rob Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” including being lucky enough to write comedy for television. Dan achieved those goals and much more.

“I produced comedy for TV, and I have a wonderful wife of 31 years, kids and a home with a lot of friends and family around,” he says. He smiles and adds that his wife, Peggy, even looks like Laura Petrie, “only she’s prettier.” 

Dan started doing improv in high school with a friend, Larry Watt. Later, Dan, Larry and Dave Toole performed improv at clubs in Hollywood, opening for comedians including Lily Tomlin. Since Dan was too young to play legally in clubs that served alcohol, he lied and said he was 18.

After high school, he attended Long Beach State College on a theater arts scholarship, but he dropped out because he was disillusioned about life.

“On the outside I was fine,” he recalls. “I was healthy. I had great friends and a great family. I just wasn’t fulfilled inside.”

As he turned 21, his quest to discover God led him on a spiritual quest to find God. One night an inner voice prompted him to read his Bible. He found the one he received in Sunday school when he was a child. Remembering that Jesus’ words were in red letters, he turned to Matthew 5 and began reading the Sermon on the Mount.

The third verse, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” caught his full attention. He fell to his knees and prayed, acknowledging to God that he was spiritually bankrupt.

As he searched the Scriptures, Dan eventually determined that he would have to leave his comedy improv team, since their “Saturday Night Love”-type sketches weren’t conducive to his new faith. Two weeks after accepting the Lord as his Savior, he showed up at a rehearsal to inform Larry and Dave that he was leaving the group, To Dan’s surprise, Dave revealed that he’d also come to Christ, and Larry said he’d fallen away from his walk with the Lord but had rededicated his life. There no longer seemed to be a reason for the men to dismantle their group. “We thought we might be able to do it from a Christian perspective,” says Dan.

Isaac Air Freight album cover.

So, Isaac Air Freight was born. When they began, they didn’t realize just how unique they were in attempting to achieve the ultimate oxymoron, “Christian comedy.” Dan said that before IAF, church humor certainly existed, but mainly in the form of camp skits and inside jokes about church culture.

IAF uniquely integrated the Christian worldview, stories of the Bible and scriptural themes with comedy sensibilities prevalent in nightclubs. Dan believes that using the language of the mainstream culture was how IAF resonated with the generation born out of the Jesus People Movement.
 
Isaac Air Freight really took off after the group opened for Keith Green in 1977, at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. Their popularity led Maranatha! Music to sign them to a record deal. Ultimately, IAF sold about 120,000 records, wildly exceeding the expectations of the group and Maranatha. IAF’s sold-out performances further convinced the group that there was a hunger for Christian humor – an area where they had no competition.

“There was Mike Warnke, but he was totally different,” Dan recalls. “Mike was a humorous storyteller.”

A leap of faith

Peg and Dan Rupple at the Sundance Film Festival.

In the spring of 1977, during a Christian music night at Knott’s Berry Farm, fellow believers introduced Dan to his future wife. Dan and Peggy were married on April 1, 1978; on their first anniversary, they announced to their parents that Peggy was pregnant. It wasn’t long before their first son, Nathan, had a brother and sister, Justin and Lauren.

In the meantime, Maranatha released “In the Air, On the Air” in 1979. One of the album’s most popular sketches was “Prodigal Joe,” which told the story of the Prodigal Son through two of TV’s most well known brothers, Hoss and Little Joe Cartright from the TV show “Bonanza.”

Dan explains that sketches based on the popular shows of the day gave IAF a touch point with the culture, since they were speaking the generation’s language. “You didn’t have to have Bible knowledge to get our jokes,” he said. “You just needed to be aware of what was going on in the culture.”

In 1981, IAF sketches hit the radio airwaves through the nationally syndicated Isaac Air Show. Dave and Dan performed about 65 shows, heard on 120 stations.

Although IAF’s popularity continued, Dan began praying about making a change. He was getting tired of being on the road, he wanted to be able to coach his sons’ T-ball teams and he wanted a new challenge creatively.

Finally, taking a leap of faith, he told Dave he was leaving the group, even though he didn’t know what he’d do next. The next day, a friend in radio asked if he’d be interested in doing a morning talk show with a comedy format. “Mornings with Dan and Bob,” featuring Dan and his good friend, Christian singer Bob Bennett, included random silliness as well as serious interviews with personalities including Bob Hope and Chuck Colson.

Dan Rupple and associates review a show scene.

Dan enjoyed what he was doing, but he still felt God had a place for him in television. In 1990, he shared those feelings with Mike Klausman, a friend in TV. As it turned out, Mike was the director of operations for CBS, and when an opening came up for a supervising producer on “The Price is Right,” Dan got the job.

“It was so ironic to be on that show after all the game show spoofs I wrote,” Dan said. “God put me in the right place at the right time with the right person.”

Thrown into the mainstream workplace, Dan quickly realized the opportunity God gave him to reach out to those around him with the love of Christ. He made a point to get to know his crew of 100 people, asking about their lives, giving them a hug or putting his hand on a shoulder and letting them know he valued them.

His relationship with his crew led to frequent prayer requests from them and prompted the show’s producer to label him the “Pastor of Price is Right.” Once Bob Barker, the show’s host, received a fan letter asking him to name his favorite Scripture. Bob sent for Dan. Thinking of how Bob kept a “watchful eye” on everyone, Dan quickly gave him Palms 23:1: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.”

After two years with “The Price is Right,” Dan received an offer for the choice assignment of the “Late Show with David Letterman.” Although he loved what he was doing, a difficult decision faced him in late 1999. The senior pastor at the church he attended for 20 years was going on to a different position, and his replacement asked Dan to be his executive pastor.

Dan had pastored before, for a church in Downey, Calif., and while he lived in Denver briefly. He and his wife prayed about the decision, and he eventually resigned from CBS and accepted the pastoral position.

Dan served as executive pastor for three years. At the end of that ministry, he and his son, Nathan, as well as Nathan’s improv group partner, Mark, took to the road as Air Freight, a takeoff of IAF. They toured for almost two years, doing sketches and improv. “We had a lot of fun, and it was a great education for Nathan,” Dan says.

Being a comedian wasn’t the only way Nathan took after his father. After Dan selected him as a lead usher for “The Price is Right,” Nathan did production work on that show, and then went on to do work on other game and talk shows. Both father and son also attended Biola University, with Dan taking advantage of its degree completion program while at CBS (and later serving as an adjunct, teaching comedy writing and digital media at the university).

Christian comedian Dan Rupple with his wife, three children and their spouses. Left to right: Lauren Rupple Smart, Jason Smart, Amy Rupple, Justin Rupple, Dan Rupple, Peggy Rupple, Danielle Rupple, Nathan Rupple.

The two had a chance to team together again when Barry Meguiar, the founder of “Car Crazy,” a cable show for car enthusiasts, asked Dan to help him create comedy videos for a new Web site. Together, Dan and Nathan created more than 40 videos.

Dan was thrilled that God brought him back into entertainment when digital media was just about ready to explode. While working for Barry, and later as he served as head of entertainment and video production for another Internet protocol television company, Dan formed his own company, Seriously Funny.TV. The company consists of the parent company, Seriously Funny Entertainment, as well as Seriously Funny Faith and Padded Room Productions.

Through Seriously Funny Faith, which produces sketches to use as sermon starters for outlets like Sermon Spice.com, Dan digitized the works of IAF. Padded Room Productions produced about 100 comedy videos, including branded entertainment for the Internet sites of leading U.S. companies.

Bearing life’s burdens 

Just this year, Nathan and his wife, Danielle, gave Dan and Peggy their first grandchild, Mason. Justin, a junior high school teacher, teaches Bible and is working on his Master of Divinity degree so he can go into the ministry. Lauren has been married a year and is nearing graduation in media management from Biola’s film department.

Peggy helped her husband in different aspects of his careers and is currently the director of special projects for Biola’s film department. She co-produces the Biola Media Conference, the largest and most influential conference in the world of Christians working in mainstream media.

It sounds like a charmed life, but the Rupples have faced challenges that Rob and Laura Petrie never did. For 20 of the 31 years they’ve been married, Peggy has battled with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a treatable but non-curable cancer.

“She’s had five bouts with it,” Dan revealed. “She’s had chemotherapy, radiation and surgeries; miraculously, God keeps sustaining her.”

Dan says that the experience has been horrific in many ways, and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. However, he also believes that no matter what hardship comes into our lives, God does not lose control or forget us.

“It’s important to hang on to what you know to be true about the nature of God,” he states. “I know his nature is one of love; it’s one of looking out for my best interests, and it’s one of redemption. He’s going to take whatever we walk through and allow it to bring great purpose to our lives and redeem it. There are places you can go in your soul that you probably couldn’t go without those hardships.”

The experience caused Dan and his family to live their lives wanting to make sure there’s great purpose. “When you don’t know what tomorrow will hold, or even if there will be a tomorrow, you make sure you’re doing things that are truly worthwhile and eternal,” he says.

Having a sense of humor, according to Dan, definitely gives his family the ability to bear this burden. “When you’re able to laugh at situations, it lightens the burden,” he says. “Proverbs 17:22 even says, ‘A merry heart is like a good medicine.’ When you can look at something like cancer through the lens of humor, you’re not quite as afraid of it anymore.”

Dan says he understands that life is not all jokes and has very serious moments. However, he explains, "Humor is one of the great gifts from the Lord to help us see tough times from a different angle." He adds that Christians have an even greater advantage when they experience difficulties – “they know that God is still on the throne."