Here's what you need to know about Aisha Tyler, who comes to Penguin's Comedy Club in the Freight House, downtown Davenport, this weekend:

1. She started out as a comedian

Best known for multiple guest appearances on the TV series "CSI," "Ghost Whisperer," "24" and "Friends," as well as hosting "Talk Soup" on E! during 2001-02, her first work was as a stand-up comedian.

"When you come out of a sketch-and-improv background, acting is just a natural extension of what you do," she said in a telephone interview. "I always wanted to be a storytelling comedian and not a joke-telling comedian ... in that Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce style of ‘Let me tell you what happened to my life' versus the jokey stuff that's orchestrated or structured."

2. The writers strike changed her course

She became so entrenched with acting - including a movie, "Black Water Transit" with Laurence Fishburne due out later this year - that she couldn't do comedy. Then came the Writers Guild of America strike, when many other careers stalled.

"It created a window for me to get out of town, kind of happily," she said.

3. She's from San Francisco

An extra on her concert video "Aisha Tyler is Lit: Live From the Fillmore" includes a black-and-white rap video about how she was the only black in a white neighborhood.

"It's my musical brat rock homage to Scorsese's ‘Mean Streets.' I wanted a really funny way to tell people who I was and where I was coming from."

4. She went to Dartmouth

Tyler was an environmental policy major at the Ivy League school, located in a town of only 10,000 people in New Hampshire.

"Dartmouth is such a totally isolated place. It doesn't have a city, it doesn't have a cultural nightlife outside campus. People who go there have a dry, high-country sense of humor." Fellow alums Mindy Kaling of "The Office" and "Grey's Anatomy" creator Shonda Rimes are slowly "building a Dartmouth mafia," she said.

5. Her comedy is "guy-friendly"

"A delightful combination of smart and raunchy," she said by way of describing her act. She uses adult language, but doesn't rely on it.

"That's not the focus of my act and my world. I don't do it because I have a lack of material," she said. "(Audiences) want to be surprised, a little scandalized. They want to come out saying, ‘I can't believe she said that.' "

6. She wants to continue the multiple careers

Tyler wants to keep doing both acting and comedy, citing Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams as career role models.

" I love that duality of making people laugh and going out and doing killer dramatic work," she said.

7. She's completed a game show trifecta

A victory on celebrity "Jeopardy!" last month added to her wins on "Million Dollar Password" and "The Weakest Link."

"I'm three-for-three now on my charity game shows," she said. "I didn't realize how competitive I was until I got on ‘Jeopardy!' I was hell-bent on winning."

YouTube video of Aisha Tyler's stand-up:

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