Viral video creator brings Dude Dad home to S.D. for live show

As if there were ever a doubt Taylor Calmus looks at life differently from many, consider how he announced that he and his wife, Heidi, were going to become parents.

The video, “Cop Pulls Over His Own Wife,” features Calmus, dressed as a police officer, demanding his wife produce her driver’s license and registration as she says “here we go again” to begin the sketch.

“I am an officer of the law,” he says.

“OK, so what? What is it? What did you pull me over for?” Heidi responds.

“You were in the carpool lane back there,” Calmus says.

“OK, so?”

“I only count one person in this motor vehicle.”

“Then you’re counting wrong.”

Pause.

“How’s that now?”

“Because I’m pregnant. We’re pregnant,” Heidi says, as nursery music plays in the background and the graphic “Baby Calmus Arriving This December” appears on screen.

Calmus shared the video seven years ago, a few months into becoming a digital video creator under his brand Dude Dad.

It’s still his most popular, amassing more than 12 million views on YouTube.

And it illustrates how Calmus, a Howard native and University of Sioux Falls graduate, has grown his comedy into a social media entrepreneur’s dream job.

“He was incapable of thinking inside the box,” said Kim Bartling, who encouraged Calmus to attend USF and was his theater professor. “He was always thinking outside the box. ‘Wouldn’t this be cool? Couldn’t we try this?’ He could make something out of nothing. He was a theater professor’s dream. He could make anything, but it was also the way he pushed himself. And he’s incapable of thinking small.”

As a kid growing up in Howard, Calmus said his parents realized at an early age “I was going to be a performer.” Church plays and high school productions – including one he developed himself with a few friends – led to college theater and USF’s opportunity to study film for a semester in Los Angeles.

“I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to go into, whether it be acting or directing or editing. I kind of like all of them, so I kept my dream really open,” he said.

He met his future wife, Heidi, while at USF. She grew up in Fargo, and they met while paired in a two-person play for a mutual friend. Her career combating human trafficking led them to Los Angeles while Calmus pursued his acting career.

“She’s extremely supportive,” Calmus said. “There was a time in LA when we were super broke, and I was working a bunch of jobs and trying to audition and make videos. We had a 1-year-old, we found out we were pregnant again, and it was way too much. I had to cut something out of my life.”

He assumed it would be Dude Dad because it was about one year in and it wasn’t making any money.

“And without hesitation she told me I couldn’t quit that because she knew there was something more on that and believed in it before I did.”

He started Dude Dad in 2016, shortly after the birth of his first child. While he knew he wanted “to make my money creatively,” in LA he’d had “a few roles here and there and commercials, but it wasn’t enough to put food on the table.” With a YouTube channel, “that sort of put me in front of everyone else because I did know how to write and direct and produce and act.”

Still, he saw it as a way to stay creative as the reality set in that he might need to “leave LA, go somewhere cheaper and get a real job.”

Instead, it began taking off. With YouTube and Facebook as his primary social networks, he grew from a following of 2,000 in 2016 to 100,000 in 2017. The following year, monetization became an option, and his hobby turned into a business.

“And once the pandemic hit, it went nuts,” he said.

This video, where he imitates “my wife in quarantine,” went viral as have many other sketches of Calmus satirizing everything from trips to Target to the adventures of toddlers.

“That was a lot of fun, and that’s when we moved to Colorado because at that point our future started to lay out, and it was clear we could do it from anywhere, so we went somewhere it was easier to have a family.”

The move also led to a series documenting their home renovation – and plenty of chances to do some satire around their new state.

“Until then, we’d always rented,” he said. “I learned all those skills in South Dakota. I worked as a carpenter for many years in Howard and Sioux Falls. We bought a 1970s house that was a dumpster fire, so there’s always new things to do.”

Dude Dad now supports five employees, plus Heidi part-time. It has grown to encompass new social networks, including Instagram and TikTok, and the goal is to produce one long-form video each week and from two to five short-form pieces. Facebook is still the strongest platform, where the brand has more than 4 million followers.

“You just have to keep doing it over and over and over again until you find your niche and what you’re good at and what people gravitate toward,” he said. “We have a lot of avenues we could focus on, whether it be Dad hacks and building cool things for kids or relational stuff between Heidi and I or renovation stuff, so we try to mix it all together so the audience doesn’t ever get too much of one thing, but we’re just going whichever way is working.”

This weekend, Calmus will return to his home state for his first headlined live show. His 8 p.m. Saturday show at the Orpheum Theater sold out, so he added a 5 p.m. show that is nearly sold out.

The hourlong comedy show is “similar to what you see online, the same kind of humor,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun, especially if you come as a couple. It’s going to be a really good time. And it will be really fun to be back in our hometown.”

Dude Dad also is about to become a dad again: Heidi is due with their fourth child soon.

The success of his content likely comes from its relatability, Calmus said.

“We are talking about the things people don’t normally say out loud,” he said. “We are showing those flaws that Heidi and I both have in a way that we can laugh about, but you can see yourself in them as well.”

Even years after graduation, Calmus still keeps in touch, Bartling said. Most conversations start with his latest big idea.

“He has a childlike quality,” Bartling said. “There is nobody more full of joy and laughter than Taylor Calmus. He’s a grownup, obviously, but he’s got this childlike wonder to him that goes from such a deep place of joy and faith that it’s infectious. I am not surprised by his success at all.”

Click here for more on Dude Dad’s show in Sioux Falls.