Carlos Brings
- Program development
- The contracted training
- Hosting and performance
- Coordination of the show content
- TVAmerican Idol · WWE · Oprah
- LiveDaytime Emmys
- ClassroomOccidental College
- CreativeQuantasy & Associates
The philosophy Start here
Humor Is a Way of Seeing
It helps us recognize contradictions, question assumptions, connect across differences and find room to act when circumstances feel fixed.
The work explores humor as an intellectual and social capacity — a way to notice, interpret, communicate and participate. We can cultivate that perspective in how we teach, lead, work and live. An audience leaves with something to consider and something to try: laughter is part of the experience, and the ideas are what give it lasting substance.
Carlos Aguilar is a Mexican American writer, educator, producer and comic. His talks leverage humor to increase organizational morale and performance. He draws on life experience and insights from philosophy, theology, teaching and advertising to present workshops with impact.
Programs Five offers · Talk to full day
Ways to Book the Work
Book the work at five depths — from a single keynote to a full day with a comedy fundraiser on top. The umbrella program name is still to be determined; for now, everything is booked by format.
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The Talk The Keynote
≈ 60 minutes · Keynote + Q&A
Book Carlos for a keynote presentation to your organization, built on the idea that humor is a way of seeing. Funny stories, a clear argument and practical takeaways the room can use right away, with Q&A as time allows. Built for conferences, all-staff gatherings and opening or closing keynotes.
TakeawayA clearer way of seeing the work in front of the room — and practical takeaways to use right away.
Check availability → -
The Half Day Put It Into Practice
≈ 3 hours · Workshop
The talk becomes a conversation, then a workshop: keynote concepts, discussion, a humor audit, boundaries, storytelling exercises and small-group application.
TakeawayOne revised lesson, meeting, message or interaction — and practical tools to keep using afterward.
Check availability → -
The Full Day Make It Part of Your Culture
≈ 6 instructional hours · Training day
Deeper practice with real situations from your own workplace, peer feedback, communication and creativity exercises, and implementation planning.
TakeawayWorkbook and companion materials, plus a team or department implementation plan.
Check availability → -
Full Day + Comedy Fundraiser Train by Day, Give Back by Night
Full day + evening event
The full-day training, followed by an evening comedy and community fundraising event hosted and performed by Carlos for your organization’s mission.
TakeawayStaff learning by day, plus a public event supporting the mission by night.
Check availability → -
Full Day + Fundraiser + VIP Reception Bring the Donors Into the Room
Full day + evening event + reception
Everything in the fundraiser package, plus a donor and sponsor reception with recognition, photos, premium seating and time to actually talk with the people who fund the work.
TakeawayA broader donor and sponsor engagement experience built around the show.
Check availability →
Fees are discussed on the inquiry. Travel, lodging, venue, AV and production are scoped separately in a written proposal.
Deeper engagements How a talk grows
From a Talk to a Full Day
Every format starts from one of the talks. The difference is how much time the room gets to work with what it hears — discussion, exercises, feedback and a plan.
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Single Talk
Length set by the event · Keynote
A clear idea, a strong argument, memorable stories and useful implications. The talk adapts in length to the event, from a conference keynote to a shorter comedic talk.
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Half Day
≈ 3 hours · Talk + workshop
A selected talk followed by discussion, reflection and guided application, so participants work the ideas into their own lessons, meetings and messages while Carlos is still in the room.
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Full Day
≈ 6 instructional hours · Training day
Two or three connected ideas explored through examples, exercises, feedback and practice. Participants develop a concrete application or plan to take back to their teams.
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Fundraiser Component
Evening · Scoped separately
A clean comedy evening hosted and performed by Carlos, built around the host organization's mission. It stands apart from the training in scope, and it can close a longer engagement as its culmination. Always optional — workshop participants never have to become performers.
Training + comedy fundraiser One booking, two rooms full
Learn All Day. Laugh All Night.
Pair the training with a comedy fundraiser and one booking does two jobs: your people get the work, and your community gets a night that moves the mission.
The Combined Experience
By day, staff train with Carlos. By night, the doors open to the whole community for a clean comedy show built around your mission — hosted and performed by Carlos, with your fundraising call to action woven into the evening. Tickets, sponsorships and donations can all feed the same goal. Revenue is never guaranteed: projected attendance, ticket prices, sponsor commitments and event costs get evaluated honestly before anyone commits to the model.
The VIP Reception
The top package adds a donor and sponsor reception around the show: recognition, photos, premium seating and real networking time with the people who fund the work. It turns a good fundraiser into the night your biggest supporters plan around.
The Host Brings
- Venue
- Audience recruitment
- Ticketing and payment collection
- Sponsors and donor relationships
- Volunteers
- Approved donation messaging
Decided Together
- Run of show
- Promotion schedule
- Technical requirements
- Additional talent
- VIP details
- Production budget and cancellation terms
Training only is always an option — the fundraiser is there when the mission could use a room full of people laughing in its direction.
Check availabilityLatino keynote Heritage Month and year-round
Stories That Sound Like Home
A third-generation Mexican American storyteller on identity, family, faith and the work of belonging — comedy that lands because it is true first.
What He Brings
Carlos grew up in Bassett in the San Gabriel Valley, in a family story that runs from Tucson to Los Angeles. On stage that becomes Mexican American storytelling with range: the abuela wisdom, the code-switching, the pride and the punchlines. Rooms hear their own families in it — and rooms that did not grow up that way leave understanding the neighbors they actually have.
Built For
- Hispanic Heritage Month keynotes (September 15 – October 15)
- Latino, Hispanic and Chicano cultural programming
- Campus and community celebrations
- Employee resource groups and company cultural events
- Any room that wants connection, not a lecture about it
Educator programs For schools and districts
From the Classroom, for the Classroom
Carlos teaches teachers the way good teachers taught him: with stories, honesty and tools that survive Monday morning.
The Background
Visiting instructor in Education at Occidental College, where he taught Education 101 and covered Education 207 and 217 in spring 2026. Before that: Latino literature, multicultural literature and American history with Upward Bound at Harvey Mudd College, high school teaching, and substitute teaching from kindergarten through adult school in his hometown of Bassett.
What Staff Take Back
- One revised lesson, meeting or interaction to try immediately
- Storytelling tools for lessons that have gone flat
- Boundaries: what builds connection and what quietly breaks it
- For full-day groups, a department implementation plan
aka Big Brown Dad
Writer. Teacher. Comic.
Carlos Aguilar is Big Brown Dad: a TV writer/producer (American Idol, WWE, Oprah, the Daytime Emmys), editorial director at Quantasy & Associates, and stand-up comic. A 1998 Occidental College graduate with an MA in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola, he returned to Oxy as a visiting instructor in Education. His speaking work starts from a simple premise: humor is a way of seeing, and a room that sees more has more choices.
A Los Angeles–area Latino keynote speaker and Hispanic comedian for corporate events, education, nonprofit, and faith audiences.
Booking inquiry Dates held in inquiry order
Check Availability
Tell us about the event and the room. Submitting opens an email with everything below filled in — nothing sends until you hit send.
The talks Eight talks
Eight Talks, Two Bodies of Work
Keynote talks, educator workshops and Latino keynote programs — booked by title. Three talks lead the slate.
Humor and Perspective How humor influences communication, learning, relationships and the experience of meaningful work.
Humor Takes You Further
How can humor expand the way we see a situation and the choices available to us?
The broadest introduction to the philosophy, and the practical entry point for most rooms. Stories and examples connect perspective to communication and everyday action — what a team can do differently once it can see its own situation clearly.
TakeawayA wider frame on a familiar problem — and a few practical moves for finding room to act inside it.
For conferences · staff gatherings · broad professional audiencesHumor Changes the Conversation
How can humor make difficult subjects approachable?
Humor can reveal assumptions and invite participation where a direct argument shuts the room down. The talk takes up judgment, timing and context — and the limits of humor, the places it should not go.
For leaders · educators · helping professionalsPermission to Laugh
What becomes possible when a classroom or workplace makes room for play?
Play, personality and discovery are not decorations on the work — the environment decides whether people participate at all. A talk about building rooms where people risk being present.
For educators · administrators · organizational teamsTaking the Work Seriously
How do people doing meaningful work retain perspective, connection and their humanity?
For people whose work is heavy by definition. The talk explores the place of humor inside demanding responsibilities — not as escape, but as one of the ways the work stays human.
For social workers · nonprofits · educatorsLife Across Worlds Education, identity, opportunity, faith and belonging. Humor shapes the delivery of these talks; it does not have to be their subject.
An Unlikely Education
What did each chapter of a life teach that the others could not?
The personal keynote. Bassett to Occidental, seminary to the music business, television and advertising writers' rooms to teaching at the college that taught him. A narrative of pivotal choices, surprising encounters and questions that never fully resolved — and the lessons Carlos brings into his work today.
TakeawayA new way to read your own chapters — and a clearer sense of what each one was for.
For colleges · conferences · cultural eventsWho Gets to Be Smart?
Which forms of intelligence do institutions recognize — and which do they overlook?
The education talk. Moving between neighborhoods, academia and creative work, Carlos saw intelligence take forms that schools and employers reward, and forms they walk right past. The talk examines recognition and opportunity: who gets seen as capable, and what it costs when the definition stays narrow.
TakeawayFresh eyes for the intelligence already in the room — and practical ways to make room for more of it.
For colleges · educators · student programsLearning to Speak Different Worlds
How do we learn the language of a new environment while deciding what to retain of ourselves?
Every new world — a campus, a company, an industry — has its own language and expectations. The talk explores adaptation, identity and belonging: what to learn, what to translate and what to refuse to give up.
For cultural programs · colleges · leadership audiencesFrom Gangs to Grammys
What does moving between dramatically different environments reveal about success?
Carlos grew up around gangs and violence in Bassett — around them, not in them — close enough to learn what those streets rewarded. His television and advertising work later put him inside Grammy- and Emmy-associated rooms; he worked in those worlds without taking those awards home. The talk follows what traveling between such different environments reveals about how success gets defined, and who gets to define it.
For student audiences · cultural events · personal keynote programsAny of these talks can stand alone as a keynote — or become the first session of a half-day or full-day engagement.
Check availabilityBring humor to work.
Tell Carlos who’s in the room, what they’re carrying, and what you want them to leave with.