A few months after releasing her first sitcom, stand-up comedian Leanne Morgan is back on Netflix with a new comedy special.
In the hourlong special, which was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, and hit Netflix earlier this month, the 60-year-old comedian reflects on everything from raising her children to her late rise to fame.
Morgan spends the last 15 minutes of her special detailing her skiing woes — including falling off a ski lift in Alta, Utah — and sharing why her faith is so important.
Leanne Morgan on first time skiing: ‘What are we doing up here?’
Morgan, who grew up in a town of 500 on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee, considers herself to be a beach person.
“If I hit it big someday, I would love to be at the beach,” she said. “But Chuck Morgan doesn’t believe in joy.”
Early on in Morgan’s marriage, her husband, Chuck, wanted her to learn how to ski. Although Chuck Morgan is a man who “rolls on a budget,” he bought her a nice ski outfit for the occasion.
“All that stuff is very expensive, so I had to wear that for 15 years,” she said matter-of-factly. “And I did not keep my weight down.”
Her first adventure on the slopes was in Beaver Creek, Colorado, where she joined a group of fellow skiing newbies in a class taught by a Mitt Romney look-alike.
On the mountain, Morgan said, she wanted to be the “young, cute, fun, ski girl.” But a cold front derailed her plans. Snow was blowing sideways and Morgan couldn’t see her hand in front of her.
“And Mitt looked at all of us and said, ‘If we get down ...’” Morgan recalled with a look of horror. “‘If we get down this mountain, I’m going to have to check y’alls noses for frostbite. It’s 19 below zero.’”
“And I remember thinking, ‘Fun? What are we doing up here?’” the comedian said in disbelief.
The next time Morgan went skiing, her kids were ages 3, 5 and 7.
“Chuck Morgan came to me and said, ‘I’m going to take y’all from Tennessee to Colorado for a week for snow skiing.’ And the only thing that I can compare that to would be maybe working in a coal mine,” Morgan said. “I’ve never worked in a coal mine, but it looks bad.”
Due to her husband’s penchant for budgeting, the family rented an apartment three towns away from the mountain. They woke up the kids abominably early in the morning to get dressed and ready for the ski lift.
Morgan reflected on the grueling process of lining up her three kids and dressing them in layers while they were still half asleep and flopping around.
“By the time I got ‘em dressed, I felt like I had hoed an acre of tobacco,” she said.
One final ski adventure — in Utah
Despite the rocky beginning, Morgan said her family tries to go skiing every year because her husband and children love it so much.
The 60-year-old comedian, who was 59 at the time she filmed the special, said her skiing adventures ended at the age of 47 following a trip to Alta, Utah.
“I had on that tight outfit,” she said, referring to the one-and-only ski outfit her husband purchased years earlier.
Although Morgan said she “had every intention of skiing that year,” something went wrong on the ski lift and she had a change of heart. She fell off the lift and into the snow, helpless as the chairs passed her by.
After some time, she said “a long-haired boy” that worked at the resort approached her.
“Get up,” he said.
“I don’t know how I got up. I don’t remember that. I feel like I blanked out, because I don’t remember a thing,” Morgan said, adding that her son witnessed the whole scene. “I somehow got to the top of that mountain. And he looked at me and he goes, ‘You’re OK. ... You’re OK, Mom. Let’s get down this mountain.”
“And I went, ‘No! God spoke to me.’”
Her son didn’t buy it, but his mom was adamant.
“‘It wasn’t an audible voice. It was in my heart,’” she told him. “He said, ‘Get off these things, Leanne.’ That’s what he said. And then I think he said, ‘Go sit down at that pizza shack for the rest of the week.’”
Leanne Morgan on faith
Morgan spends the last few minutes of her comedy special sharing her faith — and the emotional roller coaster that is getting her family ready for church each Sunday.
“Chuck Morgan and I were both raised in church. And I wanted to raise my children in church and he did, too. And I’m not saying that to y’all to say, ‘I raised my children in church,’” Morgan said with a snooty air.
“I’m saying to y’all that we are so dysfunctional. We are so messed up and dysfunctional that I don’t know what would’ve happened to us if we had not had the Lord,” she continued to a round of cheers and applause. “I mean it. Hallelujah, we have the Lord.”