Comedian and "Saturday Night Live" alumnus Colin Quinn brings his sardonic sense of humor and smart political commentary to Musikfest Café with "Unconstitutional," 8 p.m. April 19, ArtsQuest Center, SteelStacks, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem.

"I was always a class clown. I really was," says Quinn in a recent phone interview. "I grew up in the early '70's and the male teachers were all dressed in shirts with big collars, opened up to show their chest hair. They looked like swinging singles. I would crack jokes from the back of the class like 'Hey, you come here often?'

"If you can be funny at 13, you've got something," says Quinn. "It's much harder to make other 13-year-olds really laugh at 13 than it is to be a mildly funny middle-aged person."

Quinn also describes his childhood home life as an influence. "My parents were always listening to comedy records -- George Carlin, Richard Pryor. Those were the comics that I heard as a kid. I loved watching the late night shows.

"I remember seeing David Brenner, who sadly passed recently, and thinking 'That's what I want to do. That looks like a life I want.' So, I guess it was a combination of class and home. I learned I could make people laugh."

Growing up amidst an Irish-American culture in Brooklyn influenced the young Quinn, too. "There's definitely something about the Irish people. They are very under-rated comically. It's a very dry sardonic sense of humor."

That dry humor along with Quinn's trademark gravelly voice got him a spot as the announcer for the 1980's MTV game show "Remote Control." Quinn and another up and coming comic at the time, Adam Sandler, worked together on "Remote Control" and then later on "Saturday Night Live" and several movies.

Quinn describes his "Saturday Night Live" audition as not what he had hoped for. "I bombed. I had a hard night of stand-up the night before and came in and bombed. So, they hired me as a writer instead," he laughs.

During his "SNL" tenure (1995 -2000), Quinn made his Broadway debut in "Colin Quinn: An Irish Wake." Post-"SNL," in 2010, he was host of Comedy Central's "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" and "Long Story Short," his one-man show that took an intelligent and comedic look at the history of civilization.

"Jerry Seinfeld backed it. He was in the money. Without Jerry, I don't think the show could have raised 40 dollars," jokes Quinn.

History again takes the stage with Quinn's latest one-man show, "Unconstitutional," a look at the United States Constitution.

"I don't look at it as history," he says. "I was never really a history buff. You can't bring up the present without bringing up the past. Everything is a reflection of everything. Wow, that sounds like an awful '70's soft rock song. My life is an awful song from 1971," he laughs.

Quinn sees the Constitution as something that is ingrained in every American's way of life whether or not they have read it.

"It influences all of us the way the Koran influences the Arab world. We are divided in America because the Constitution allows us to be divided. It allows us to have different opinions."

In addition to "Unconstitutional," Quinn has appeared on HB0's "Girls"; the movies "Grown Ups" (2010), "Grown Ups 2" (2013), and has a popular Twitter account.