Comedian Tommy Davidson coming to Stratford

Tommy David­son has always loved to do impres­sions, but there’s one states­man he’s become par­tic­u­larly adept at mimicking.

“Pres­i­dent Obama has this way of talk­ing to white Amer­i­cans,” David­son said, his joc­u­lar voice mutat­ing into the president’s sedate bari­tone. “He takes words that make them com­fort­able — democ­racy, eco­nomic strength, edu­ca­tion, health care — lines them up in a row and calls that a speech. None of it actu­ally makes any sense, unless you’re white.”

David­son also imi­tates other famous black per­son­al­i­ties, includ­ing Michael Jack­son, M.C. Ham­mer, Sugar Ray Leonard, Spike Lee and Ste­vie Won­der. He brought many of them to life as a cast mem­ber on the 1990s sketch com­edy show, “In Liv­ing Color,” for which he became a household name.

David­son brings his imper­son­ations, along with his mus­ings on a host of top­ics, to the Ramada Inn in Strat­ford on Fri­day, Feb. 11.

David­son, 47, has been bust­ing out impres­sions from a young age. At the time, he didn’t even know what impres­sions were, or that come­di­ans used them to make people laugh.

“I would sit in the laun­dry room where I grew up and do them for my friends,” he recalled dur­ing an inter­view last week. “My mother would tell me to shut that noise up. It was just fun for me.”

But that exper­tise — along with a vibrant stand-up per­for­mance and keen sense of char­ac­ter devel­op­ment — has helped David­son nav­i­gate a suc­cess­ful career both on stage and screen.

In 1990, David­son made his debut on “In Liv­ing Color.” He played var­i­ous per­son­al­i­ties, includ­ing Sammy Davis Jr. and Sugar Ray Leonard, and even cre­ated his own char­ac­ters, such as the funki­fied karate instruc­tor, Sweet Tooth Jones.

“It’s one of the great­est things I’ve ever been involved in,” said David­son, who helped to make the show one of the most watched pro­grams on the Fox Net­work.

Today, David­son is work­ing on his own idea for a sketch com­edy pro­gram, a “celebrity talent-driven vari­ety show” that harkens back to the days of Flip Wil­son and Carol Bur­nett. David­son would focus on war, pol­i­tics and race rela­tions, top­ics that have largely van­ished in the com­edy tele­vi­sion land­scape, he said.

“That’s what they did back then — they did sketches on sub­jects like the Viet­nam war,” he said. “They didn’t hide it under the rug.”

The lack of net­work inter­est in his idea hasn’t stopped David­son from pur­su­ing other ven­tures. He’s con­tin­ued to per­form stand-up, for which he reg­u­larly earns raves reviews. The adopted son of Cau­casian par­ents, David­son is able to descon­struct racial stereo­types and induce laugh­ter among all peo­ple, regard­less of their race.

He’s also starred in movies and taken on ani­mated roles, includ­ing the voice of what he called a “Sammy Davis Jr. cricket” on the pop­u­lar Nick­elodeon car­toon “Ren & Stimpy.” Recently, he played Oscar, the father in the Disn

ey ani­mated series “The Proud Family.”

“Prob­a­bly 99 per­cent of ani­ma­tion on tele­vi­sion has no black peo­ple on it,” he said. “I’m proud to be that

1 per­cent.”

While David­son has yet to make as big a splash as he did on “In Liv­ing Color,” he doesn’t want to “deny some­thing good.” He’s going to keep on grind­ing, and putting him­self– and plenty of other hilar­i­ous char­ac­ters — out to the world.

Said David­son: “I’m not sweat­ing it. The uni­verse will make a name for me, eventually.”

The Ramada Inn is at 225 Lord­ship Blvd., Strat­ford. Fri­day, Feb. 11, 8:30 p.m. $25 advance, $35 at door. 203–545-1347.