Getting noticed as a comic seemed an impossible feat for Steven Lolli when he first hit Hollywood 20 years ago.

The lines to become a regular act in clubs like the Comedy Store and Laugh Factory were so long that he felt he’d never get a shot.

Lolli may be a white Jewish man, but he found a improbable path to success through an entirely different route: diving into the Black comedy venues that rarely saw white performers trying to cross over.

His manic energy and willingness to take a chance paid off, as audiences immediately embraced his stylistic mix modeled on his comedic heroes, Eddie Murphy and George Carlin.

Twenty years later, Lolli has managed to turn those magic moments into a career in which he has written extensively for superstar Katt Williams and cult favorite Eddie Pepitone. The latter connection finds him facing yet another breakthrough, as the two comics are teaming with writer/producer Mark Brazill (co-creator of “That ‘70s Show”) on a new series starring Pepitone.

He’s come a long way, but for Lolli, the journey to comedy success started with his very funny father.

Comedy was a staple of viewing in their house, ranging from the highbrow Peter Sellers film “Being There” through Steve Martin’s wacky works. The special that lit Lolli’s comedy fire was George Carlin’s 1991 special “Jammin’ in New York,” where Carlin started making a pronounced move to biting social commentary.

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Lolli remembers being fascinated by the comic’s daring willingness to take on the Persian Gulf War head-on.

“I’d seen standup, but never anything like this. And Carlin was talking about how the middle class pays all the taxes, the rich do none of the work and poor people are just there to scare the crap out of the middle class so they’ll keep showing up for work,” says Lolli, a Chicago native who started his comedy career in Florida. “I’ll never forget that, and the response of my Reagan Republican dad: ‘He’s a Communist.’”

The other key influence on Lolli was Eddie Murphy, whom an awkward 15-year-old Lolli saw as a man living the dream on every possible level. He marveled at Murphy’s concert film “Raw,” finding it to be “90 minutes of pure comedy genius” and was astounded by his willingness to take on Bill Cosby at the height of the then-legend’s sitcom success.

“I’m 15 then, and thinking this guy Eddie is cool and he’s young, and he represented me and my generation, where George Carlin and Richard Pryor were great but part of my dad’s world,” explains Lolli. “I felt like George was a very funny teacher, and I wouldn’t be bored and failing if my schoolteachers talked like that. And Eddie was the way I’d need to be to get girls. All I knew was I wanted to do comedy, and to do it combining the best of what I saw in Carlin and Murphy.”

Taking the stage for the first time at a Florida club’s comedy contest at the age of 19, Lolli found he had an instant knack for the art of standup. Within five years, he was touring comic performing as the opening act for the late, great superstar Mitch Hedberg at the Stardome club in Birmingham, Ala.

After a wild week in which he and Hedberg engaged in some mind-altering fun together, Lolli was surprised to find Hedberg inviting him to try Los Angeles out with a note that included his cell phone number. And so in 2001, Lolli made the move to La La Land, where a top comedy manager suggested that Lolli cut through the clutter of comics by trying the now-shuttered Mixed Nuts, a club dedicated to comic diversity.

“I love to perform with a lot of emotion, and in a black club your approach can be a lot more emotional than in White rooms,” explains Lolli. “It’s like a comedy trampoline when you jump onstage in front of a black crowd,. and I think I even peed my pants a little from nerves.

“But I did really well, and they were so welcoming, and I thought ‘I’m 25, and I might be really good at this,’” he recalls. “And I rose through their ranks from there, til I was able to get onstage almost anytime.”

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Lolli quickly made friends with many of the top black comics on the LA scene, with female comic Coreie Mosley proving to be an especially helpful contact. She proved instrumental to meeting Williams, who catapulted Lolli to a full-time comedy career.

“Katt and Coreie were friends, and I heard he was shooting a movie close to where I was living, so we went to the set one night,” recalls Lolli. “Almost the second we hit the set, Katt came walking out of his trailer and ran straight into us. I wasn’t a religious guy at the time, but it was a truly mind-blowing moment.”

By the end of a night of shooting the bull with Williams, the superstar invited him to write for him full-time, even offering him a better place to live.

“He said, ‘you can come and be a writer for me. All my friends think you’re funny and you can get paid every week,’” says Lolli. “There’s a lot of crazy stories about Katt Williams, but that guy just opened his heart to me. And he ended up changing my life.”

While that partnership eventually ended after a few years, Lolli has continued to perform at top L.A. venues, crossing over as a regular presence at Chocolate Sundaes at the Laugh Factory. He also delivered a subversive performance between comedy legend Lily Tomlin and Emmy-winning “Glee” actress Jane Lynch at the “Laughter is the Best Medicine” annual benefit for the Valley Community Clinic’s healthcare fund for the poor.

On his own, Lolli also serves as the host of the freewheeling, informal podcast “The No Idea Zone,” which producers Richard Haerther and Graham Haerther launched due to the pandemic as a way to stay creative. In it, he interviews his best comedy friends including Mosley in a highly informal yet very funny fashion.

The podcast’s third season debuts this winter.

It was at the Comedy Store that he had his other great moment of kismet, meeting Pepitone and impressing him enough to be immediately asked to join him as host for his “Pep Talks” podcast.

“We also created a spoof of Jerry Seinfeld’s ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’ called ‘Comedians Without Cars Getting Soda,’” says Lolli. “We originally wanted to call it “Comedians Without Cars Getting Food Stamps’ but we didn’t want to make people feel like losers.”

Both shows with Pepitone were carried on the All Things Comedy platform owned by superstar comic Bill Burr. It was that comedy combo that brought Lolli to the attention of top sitcom producer Mark Brazill and the creation of his upcoming show with Pepitone.

“It’s still in the process of getting made so I can’t tell you much about it, but it’s a surreal variation on a comedy-variety show hosted by Eddie,” explains Lolli. “I brought an idea to Brazill that has completely transformed by writing with those guys for the past three years.

“I’m really blessed in my career to have been acknowledged by people I admire,” says Lolli. “Everyone who has noticed me is someone I’m a huge fan of and are much funnier than me.”

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