Phone calls from Jay Leno and surprise visits from Robin Williams are just a couple of the memorable moments from the Funny Bone's first 28 years.

"Mostly my nostalgia goes back to when we were on Route 51 in Whitehall from 1982 to 1988," said co-owner Jeff Schneider. "Those were the fun days before it was a viable business, and we didn't know in 1982 that a nightclub solely devoted to comedy could be a viable business."

The club's infancy was colored by appearances by some of comedy's rising stars at the time, such as Steven Wright and Dennis Miller. The time Mr. Williams unexpectedly stopped in and asked if he could have a few minutes at the mic, Mr. Schneider told him, "Well, Mr. Williams, we have a full show here." But he eventually gave in and let him have his turn.

Mr. Schneider remembers the club's early days as being a "little wilder" than the later years. "Once people got older, got married and had children, suddenly you take it more seriously," he said.

In 1988, the Funny Bone relocated to the Freight House at Station Square. "Back then it was the hottest place in town," Mr. Schneider said. "We needed to be where the action was, and once we went there, the business exploded and we caught the wave."

"That old room was one of the best rooms in the country" to do stand-up, said Jesse Joyce, an Oakland native who started his comedy career in the late '90s at the Funny Bone before moving to New York City. The closeness between the audience and the comedian gave that room "a really great vibe."

Mr. Joyce worked as a bartender's assistant at the club for a while as he developed his comedy chops. "Even when I wasn't working, I would hang out and watch other professional guys who were coming through town," he said.

For Mr. Joyce, some of the highlights of his Funny Bone days involved the audience, such as the time he made a woman laugh so hard she vomited. "I dropped the mic and raised my arms in victory," he said.

Another audience-related memory for Mr. Joyce was back in 2001 on the night before Three Rivers Stadium was to be imploded. People were trying to stay awake to watch the implosion in the morning and were drinking, Mr. Joyce said, and the combination of lack of sleep and too much alcohol led to a show-stopping crowd dispute.

"Most of my fun stories are from the old" Funny Bone at the Freight House, he said.

But it wasn't always fun and games back then. Mr. Joyce recalls one manager being particularly difficult to get along with and rough around the edges. But Mr. Joyce drew inspiration from the negativity.

He really "lit a fire" under me to prove to myself, he said.

The Schneider brothers sometimes had a similar effect on comics, said Paul Bond, an actor and comedian who has appeared at the Funny Bone many times over the past 10 years.

"The Schneider brothers are a tricky couple because their comedians either like them or they don't like them," Mr. Bond said. "They're as honest as they get."

The Funny Bone traded its room at the Freight House in 2002 for a spot in Station Square's Bessemer Court development. Within the first couple of weeks at the new location, Artie Lange, Drew Carey and the cast of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" all made appearances.

"That was the biggest highlight of Station Square by far," Mr. Schneider said.

But for some comics, the Funny Bone's second home at Station Square never quite measured up to its first.

"It was like performing in the parking garage," Mr. Joyce said. "It was too big."

The artwork featuring the heads of famous comedians in iconic paintings, such as Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper," also distracted audiences from the comics sometimes, Mr. Joyce said.

But it was that particular parody of art that sparked a phone call from Jay Leno, who heard that the Funny Bone in Pittsburgh was calling him a Judas, said Mr. Schneider, who explained to Mr. Leno that the club meant no harm by showing him sitting in the disciple Judas' chair.

After eight years at the Bessemer Court development, the club is packing up and heading to the Radisson Hotel in Green Tree for another fresh start.

"I think they stuck it out as long as they could in Station Square without getting totally killed," Mr. Bond said. "Now that their overhead is a lot less, they'll be able to bring in different acts that they couldn't afford [before]... I think it was an overall great move."

"I think it could be very cool," Mr. Joyce said. "It remains to be seen what it's going to be like."

First Published: April 8, 2010, 8:00 a.m.