The comedian known to the planet as Def Noodles cannot be described by just a few adjectives or merely as a noun. A funny multimedia entertainer who knows how to criticize as good as he characterizes, Dennis Feitosa, aka Def Noodles, has several YouTube channels, and a heavy online presence, with more followers than Gandhi and more laughs than humanly possible. Armed with his own fully operational studio, as well as his own comedy club, the businessman, producer, director, comedian and successful media personality is a force to be feared, online or on the stage.
Def Noodles desire to right wrongs and tell truths has made him some adversaries. That's ok, the ancient Japanese samurai had a proverb: "An individual with no enemies is probably not respectable." The courage to say what's against mundane cultural norms is a hallmark of any famous comedian or writer, from Lenny Bruce to George Carlin to Richard Pryor to Dave Chapelle, today.
With so many YouTube channels dedicated to denigrating him you'd think he was some sort of superhero going up against an evil online conglomerate with only one power...filming themselves complaining about another, more qualified person's hard work.
In a recent adventure Def Noodles hosted a roast at his comedy club in downtown LA, right off of Sunset Ave. where many legendary stand up comics got their start. While a traditional comedy roast is supposed to be good fun, where nobody loses their temper and silver tongues win, not violence, a man somewhat unknown to the world calling himself Salvo Pancakes (hereafter known as Mr. Pancakes) decided to try to ruin a fun night out by trying to start a fight and create a scandal to gain notoriety, similar to the dumbass that rushed Dave Chapelle months ago and got so beat up he looked like he lost The Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Violence is never cool in stand up comedy, and The Slap, which is what comedians call what Will Smith did to Chris Rock at the last Academy Awards, has made stand up comics afraid to perform, especially females. Mr. Pancakes didn't just act like a kichigai (it's a great Japanese word, perfect for describing an egotistical narcissist that ruins the party, look it up) for his fifteen seconds of online fame...the man ruined his career and endangered the lives of women in the club, trying to start a riot just because of an online argument that never needed to get violent. I guess Mr. Pancakes isn't a feminist, aside from not being fun to work with or funny to others. So what happened?
How did Mr. Pancakes end up at your show?
Def Noodles: It's a crazy story. I can't go into all of the details because it involves a legal situation. Essentially, we did the first roast battle. People online would chicken out. They would all talk a bunch of shit I would invite them to come over and they would all find some excuse. We had one person say, "I'm going! I'm going!" on Twitter space and then I said I would pay for her ticket to come, and she said, "I can't." So we did the first one. It was very successful. A lot of fun to do. A lot of people really enjoyed it and came back for the second one.
The first Roast Battle was sold out, right?
Def Noodles: Yeah, it sold out. The narrative on the internet is that I had seven friends here. As far as tickets go we sold 38, 39 tickets, we had all the plus ones and the guests, so it was about 50 people. For the second Roast Battle we had 55 to 60 people. So the difference is that we only had one camera angle on the first one because I had some technical issues so we didn't really show the audience but there were a lot of people in the building. The whole building was packed for the second one.
So how Pancakes ended up at the second one is that as soon as I announced it...I think I announced the second one after maybe a couple days after the first. He reached out and said he really wanted to be in it, that he would fly in from Ohio, which is where he's from...he essentially invited himself. I was aware he was a troll who works for people I'm suing. I thought it would be a good precedent to set for other YouTubers.
You wanted to give others a chance to back up their words, and also give yourself a chance to do the same.
Def Noodles: Yeah. I liked the idea of having somebody show up. This has never been done before in the YouTube community. Comedy happens all the time. On YouTube it's usually people talking shit behind a screen protected by the anonymity or the difference between themselves. So I thought it would be interesting to have that play out here and that's how he (Mr. Pancakes) ended up getting invited. I was like, "Let's have a YouTuber." I like helping out people. We help each other out all the time out here.
To his credit, he's being courageous. You are pretty high up up there amongst the clouds with your career and this guy is still on Earth, so you are being nice to reach down and help this dude.
Def Noodles: Yeah, the entertainment business is not really built for upward mobility. All of this I had to build myself. I had to save the money and then surround myself with other people who are even better at it than I am so we can do more, which is where everyone else comes in. Everyone brings something to the table.
I like creating culture. I think creating something fun and cool and funny is ultimately the objective and incorporating YouTube as much as possible because it's such an insular thing. What I get from a lot of people is, "Why did you put up so much of of Pancakes shit?" Because honestly I wanted to see where it would go because nothing like this has ever been done in the YouTube community. You're getting street comics, and YouTube drama from people used to trolling you in a basement, putting it all together and seeing what happens.
Pancakes had the courage as a troll to show up and do something. I admire that. It took balls.
Def Noodles: 100%. As a comic I can appreciate the balls that it took. That's like, first year comic shit, a lot of the stuff he did, being so antagonistic, so in your face. I used to host open mics in New York and I saw the same thing happen some guy walks in and he's with his friends who think he's funny and he bombs. Those same people who are funny in front of a group of friends cracking jokes can't handle it onstage so they start bombing and panicking.
In one case I saw this guy have a violent meltdown, take off his shirt and start flailing, trying anything he can to be funny. That's first year comic shit. If Salvo had any experience he'd know that he's essentially jeopardizing all the comics around him, and endangering everybody around him, by doing the shit that he is doing.
Sure, he's getting a specific audience of trolls to laugh because of the schadenfreude. They are enjoying, "my downfall." "Yes! Dennis is taking it!" And at what cost? There's no club in LA or New York that would put up with that type of shit.
Also, when you listen to him and look at him in the video of the roast the guy looks unhinged. He looks angry. A roast is a bunch of guys making fun of each other. It's not supposed to be serious. Mr. Pancakes looks like Wolverine going into berserker mode and taking out half of the MCU.
Def Noodles: Yeah, honestly the way we handled it, outside of me pushing him when he wouldn't get off the stage...if I could take it back, yeah, I shoulda woulda coulda walk up onstage and kindly told the dude to sit down and even if he got into my face like I did before he came onto the show.
Was Mr. Pancakes angry and violent with you before the show?
Def Noodles: He'd been trying really hard to break into the green room and cause a scene. Two of my staff had to stop him. He was banging on windows when he first got here. I didn't want to have him in the green room because he had been antagonizing other comics. I didn't want to have a situation in the green room get out of hand, I'd rather have it in a controlled environment where we have three security guards instead of just one back here.
So he was already trying to create a scene before he got pushed?
Def Noodles: 100%. Exactly. He was walked off stage two or three times before anyone walked out. He knew I was going to come out because the show was starting. So he was looking for a reaction, and he definitely got a reaction. He got his clip, he got his fight. He got pushed by Def Noodles and all that . I would have done that differently. I think that honestly, the whole night, considering the environment we had, that we had 10 to 15 hecklers at one time...
You guys look like you are all keeping calm.
Def Noodles: Yes, we handled it pretty well. I think Salvo is going to look back at himself and be extremely embarrassed if he isn't yet. Unless he feels absolutely no shame whatsoever or he's that gung ho about clout and getting attention that he'll do anything for it. I do believe that at some point he's going to look back and feel a deep sense of shame because he didn't ruin the show for me, I just feel bad because people came up to me who had also bought tickets for our next show and said they couldn't enjoy the show because he was causing a scene outside and screaming at people outside of the club after he got kicked out.
So Mr. Pancakes was going out messing with the show after he was 86'd?
Def Noodles: Yeah, he got taken out, and after that we wrapped up the show in about a minute after we got our bearings back together. What he doesn't understand is that there is a greater spectrum than the one he is insulated in who just enjoy trolling. There's a greater community. What he did is fucked up.
What bothers me is that in the videos where he talks about the roast Mr. Pancakes says, "Ha! He fell into my trap! Def Noodles totally fell for what I was going to do!" That tells you he is a guy that walked in with an agenda.
What people online need to understand is that in the video, he is trying to destroy the world around him. You guys are being very calm despite that. You're trying to protect the world around you. A protector is under an incredible amount of stress because you are worried about your people and establishment while he's just shooting everything with a flamethrower. When you pushed him you were just trying to protect the show.
Def Noodles: Yes. That's not the narrative on the internet. The narrative is that I assaulted him and he's some sort of victim, even though I've shown how he, a dozen of his friends and some guy who created another show essentially coordinated this attack, how they were literally trying to incite a riot in my building, I got an email from the guy who paid for Pancakes to fly out here tell me a week and half beforehand, "I hope you have insurance, we are going to burn your place down."
Wow. That's not cool.
Def Noodles: They were making threats. They were going to have people faking seizures. The first show we had three security guards work the show. This time I had four and an EMS. It was still not working. I was advised to get off duty LAPD cops to do it and prevent a SWAT raid. They still couldn't handle the situation.
It's more volatile because there are a million people watching online and anything can make you look bad.
Def Noodles: This is unprecedented too because we are filming it live online. Our first show got banned on Twitch because somebody said something that was against the terms of service. We had to figure out with the second show how to have a delay in the stream to save my social media account and not get banned.
I thought his plan was just to go up there and get me banned on my social media accounts. He could go up there and yell a slur, or just hold a sign that has a slur written on it. So I had to be able to censor the stream, and the last thing you want to do with comics is interrupt their flow. I'm literally running a television station that has a delay, like they do for the Oscar's. I can't afford to lose my platforms because of how volatile it has gotten.
If you could do it again, what would you have done differently to handle Mr. Pancakes?
Def Noodles: I would have never let him in the building. If I had let him in the building, I would have kicked him out earlier because he was already causing destruction and bothering people. It was my curiosity. I wanted to see the end of the situation instead of cutting it short and thinking of what it could have been. That often bites me on the ass.
You are on the horns of a dilemma too because if you don't let him on, you are a coward who is afraid to face him one on one. So he gets to show up, destroy the place, and to a person that doesn't know what's really going on you look like you just kicked him out. Mr. Pancakes wanted to blow the whole thing up.
Def Noodles: That was a dilemma, too. Somebody highlighted that on Twitter. So it's lose or lose. I got a lot of shit because we got to his part of the show eventually, and there are a lot of people who didn't even watch the whole show, so they just see him get onstage and get kicked out immediately. No, the guy sat there for the whole duration of the show, to the very end, and towards the end I was advised by people I trust to not give him the mic.
People still loved the show. So did people online. So I decided to draw out the suspense. Will I him give him he mic? So we could draw it out for the people online and for the whole community. I asked the audience, "Should I give him the mic?" Some people said, "Yes!" Some said, "No!" I was going to give him the mic anyways. I was just curious to see what he had.
So I kept walking onstage and getting heckled, and then I got a lull where I could talk, so I tried to thank him for flying over, because I think that took a lot of courage to fly out from Ohio, spend two nights in a hotel...apparently he has a nine-to-five job, he has a wife and kids, he seems like a person who has a full-fledged family and he gave all that up to come here and cause this scene.
At least he looked you in the eye. He's brave for doing that. He made the journey. A lot can go wrong on a journey.
Def Noodles: I respected him for doing that. Then I gave him the mic. His moment in the sun. After everything he did...he completely chokes. And then he says, "I'm not going to do any jokes, I'm not going to roast you. I'm going to monologue for an hour." So he starts to yell, "Fuck Def Noodles," and everything is chanting with him, so I jump in and chant too, I don't give a fuck. Fuck me. Fuck everybody.
You were rolling with the punch.
Def Noodles: Then he starts calling everyone who showed up before him a hack, just disrespecting every other comedian that was onstage, which is an asshole thing to do. He's not really a comic. He doesn't understand what he is doing. Here's the irony. He calls everyone a hack and then starts to make hack jokes, like calling me old, which is stuff that I joke about.
There was this little scandal on the internet that my age was listed as being 37. My agent listed me as being that young so I could get more jobs playing younger roles.
In your defense in Hollywood, it's not your age, and the age you can play. That's what a lot of people don't get. Everyone looks younger in Hollywood. You're not lying, you are indicating the age you can play.
Def Noodles: So ok, I'm old. He had his shot. He had 3-5 minutes. He starts getting heckled and then turns to me like, "Are you going to do something?" I'm like, "Bro, I've been heckled for 90 minutes. You can't take getting heckled for two?" Here's a taste of your own medicine. Eventually security took the microphone away and dragged him out. He caused a scene. That's all he wanted. To be dragged out.
In the video people can see he's trying to peaceful noncompliance act when he raises his arms and just drops on his ass like he's a protestor at a rally on the streets. The problem is a person can't do that in a private establishment. That shows his intent. The owner of a business can legally kick a person out whenever they want. He's trying to act like a peaceful protestor because he doesn't understand the law.
Def Noodles: Like I said, there's plenty of evidence if this ever goes to court. He says he has a ruptured disc...I've had a ruptured disc once and couldn't walk for a week and a half. I couldn't get out of bed. He was running around for two hours after getting kicked out. I was immediately unable to walk.
It's obvious. If he was really injured he would have gone to a hospital, gotten treatment from a doctor, and then filed a police report.
Def Noodles: He didn't file a police report. He didn't check in with any local hospitals. He's just trying to have his 15 minutes of fame.
Yeah, if he's so busted up because you hurt him so bad, why is he doing all of those interviews? That's not a person in pain and agony, fighting for his life because of the injuries. He's just trying to get bad publicity.
Def Noodles: 100%. Then he gets into his limo afterwards and says he's going to sue me, and he's just joking around. I have footage of him walking away perfectly right outside the club here. He stayed around for ten minutes after the show was over, still bothering people, still getting into vocal situations with people.
Honestly, I don't know where that type of behavior leads you. There's not positive outcome for that. I really believe that there's a cycle of karma. When he's facing the same shit he's been doing to everybody it's going to be bad. Karma is ruthless.
In Hollywood, whether it's film or theater you've gotta get along. He's basically telling every comedy club producer, "I'm going to start a riot. I'm not going to get along, I'm going to bust up your show and ruin it," based on that video of the roast nobody is going to want to hire this guy. He's proven that he's useless and cannot be trusted.
Def Noodles: Somebody like that can only exist on the internet. This little tiny bubble on the internet that values this destructive behavior. That shit gets old. There are a lot of people that have made their careers doing that and they don't really last more than two years. There's always somebody who does that shit better.
That's why it's cooler to build communities, with cool, artistic shit happening to try to empower people so you are building everybody up around you so everybody is lifting each other up and then you have something cool at the end that everybody can show up for, instead of, "I went there for a day and destroyed it. That's my legacy." Can you imagine that? You'd have to be tremendously unaware to think that's good. There were people who came up to me afterwards who were literally traumatized.
The video of the roast looks like a prison riot. It's not cool.
Def Noodles: Exactly, that's the memory he's leaving people with. There are people who did enjoy the schadenfreude. They were super entertained. But that only lasts so long, because if you are just destroying you aren't building something up. You're not adding value.
I agree. What breaks my heart is Mr. Pancakes was so focused on hurting you, and look at the people he was working with? There was some A+ talent on that stage. Steven Marcus Releford has and all of those other comics have worked everywhere. They are in films and on Netflix specials. This guy had a chance to work with talent he never would have been able to work with. He should have said, "Now is the time to get along." Instead he's ruining a career he never really had. He wasted the opportunity.
Def Noodles: You are right. People are only seeing only the very beginning stages. They are seeing just a baby that's three weeks old. By the time it's 5 or 10 it's going to be totally different. It's like a television show. There are pilots that are shot on a shoestring budget. The Office only shot six episodes and ended up being the longest running comedy. In every season they got better, they got more writers, they got better at everything, the coverage, the filming.
This is just the beginning. When big companies approve comedies they greenlight a dozen episodes because they know it will take a while for people to understand the humor. So people shouldn't see the second roast and think that's it. We are thinking two or three years down the line. Everybody else is just looking at what just happened.
You are trying to grow roots for a community, for people who are poor and need the money and the stage time. Mr. Pancakes isn't just bothering you, he is burning down a community. He's the bad guy in every Disney film. He's just one person trying to hurt everybody else.
Def Noodles: 100%. We're trying to build a platform in a community that would rather give a platform to sexual predators, right? It pisses me off because I'm the face for all this, so it's like having a target on your back.
People watching the roast should really understand the bad position you were in. In the video Mr. Pancakes looks very angry, his face is red, and you are all doing your best to smile, look confident and keep the show going on. Everybody else onstage was being a professional. You did your best.
Def Noodles: It was definitely a learning experience. I was never in a room that was that hostile. With comedy shows there is an understanding that everybody paid their ticket to be there and is there to be entertained. But there was a large group of people who came and their entertainment wasn't the show, their entertainment was disrupting this show as much as possible.
True.
Def Noodles: That's like some Twitter shit. That's gonna be a memory that I'll have forever. There were a lot of comics that weren't really happy about it and I had to apologize afterwards.
He was like a terrorist with bombs strapped to himself. If a person is willing to kill their career to trash your show, and doesn't care about hurting the audience or other performers, even Superman couldn't stop something that bad.
Def Noodles: I didn't expect it to go the way it did. We were talking about it before. He really came here feeling emboldened with all the people backing him up. If he just came here by himself it would have been different. If he had came her with a neutral crowd or my crowd it would have been different. I don't try to use my crowd against people. That would be fucking terrible. Nobody would want to perform here. Weaponizing my audience to attack people who come here...
You don't want to be a demagogue. You want to be a host.
Yeah, exactly. I'm wondering, if he had come here by himself, would there have been a different dynamic? Imagine if he's by himself without the 10-12 people supporting him who were yelling and chanting people with him.
Were those people planted here?
Def Noodles: Yeah, they were plants. I have the facebook posts by this guy from Chicago, his name is Mike, he runs a show called Red Bar, it's like a public access show. He's built a career making fun of comedians. A lot of comedians absolutely despise him and really don't like him. So he paid for Salvo's plane tickets, he paid for him to stay here, he paid for his limo, for his security guard and the fans who came over who were all fans of his show Red Bar.
That's how Mr. Pancakes got assistance. He had a bunch of bots.
Def Noodles: Yeah, he got a bunch of people but it was Astroturf shit. What politicians do to each other. They know there is going to be a rally, so they pay somebody to heckle their opponent. They do that shit all the time, it's just that nobody expects that to happen at a comedy show because everyone else is there to be entertained.
Your detractors should also understand that it's very difficult for anyone to keep their cool with a dozen people heckling them. Even Mother Theresa would eventually start flipping them off.
Def Noodles: It's not even protected speech. It's what they call the heckler's veto. It's yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. I could take legal action against him for that. For a lot of free speech laws there's a year long statute of limitation on it. I'd have to look into it. I'm pretty sure he committed several crimes with what he did. He said he intended to incite people. That's not protected speech. You can't go inciting people to act that way.
Mr. Pancakes had no jokes. He was just angry. People also have to remember this is after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscar's. Every comedian in LA I talk to is afraid of someone walking up and attacking them for performing. They don't want Mr. Pancakes at their show.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Def Noodles: I know I got a lot of shit for pushing him. My conclusion is I had two options. I should have either not pushed him or gone all in and knocked him the fuck out.
Get sued. Go to jail. Fuck it, that's punk rock. Not a good way to host a comedy club, though.
Def Noodles: Honestly, if I'm going to get accused of something I didn't do then I'm going to do it. Moving forward I am never going to have a situation like that. I want YouTubers to be a part of this because I think it's a cool thing to have. I have to establish limitations. Sure, I'll lose the public battle on social media because I'm kicking them out of the show, but the integrity of the show is being preserved because people get to see the show they paid for. So at this point I'm learning which battles to choose.
A roast is about having a good time, being funny and constructive criticism. Mr. Pancakes wasn't there for any of that. People who aren't at your level will try to bring you down. It like crabs in a bucket.
Def Noodles: I've learned that I'm a little too laid back sometimes. Honestly, I could end up making this all into a movie. There were two times I had to get off the stage because I needed a drink of water. I was sweating buckets, it was like 120 degrees in Los Angeles. We had air conditioning but there were too many bodies.
The moment I stepped out Pancakes started doing jokes about George Floyd to really piss people off and get us banned. So when I stepped out there was just this wave of negativity and all that anger, while back here (in the green room) it was just chill, but it was like people witnessing an automobile accident. So I'd step outside and just imagine a camera on a dolly following me in and seeing all that. The guy said, on the show, that he flew from Ohio to kill me. That's literally what he said.
Author's Note: Mr. Pancakes was not available for comment.
You can find Def Noodles on YouTube right here.
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