Alfred Ho was born on 1 May 1965, in Springvale, Melbourne, and attended Mineret Elementary School. After his parents relocated back to their homeland, Ho stayed in Australia with his great-aunt Shu while spending summers with his family in the Guangdong Province of China.

Life with great-aunt Shu had a profound effect on Ho, as she introduced him to vinyl recordings of comedy legends such as Lenny Bruce, Bill Cosby and George Carlin. Many of Ho’s later routines reflected his meticulous schooling at the hands of his great-aunt. According to Ho’s biographer Allen Holdman, Shu’s dry humour, which involved meditative stream-of-consciousness swearing fantasies and references to chicken recipes, left an indelible mark on the seven year old.

During his third year of University, Ho began his first foray into comedy with an exercise he named ‘Trashing’. Ho would infiltrate random weddings, bar mitzvah and sports nights by convincing security or organisers that he was the master of ceremonies. One evening in 1983, at the RSL Club Ball in St. Kilda, Ho took to the stage as the character ‘General Anzac Harbour’. He improvised impressions of Australian sports heroes being interviewed by Ghenghis Khan for a complete twenty minutes before he was discovered as a fraud and ejected from the premises.

After graduating from the University of Melbourne, where he studied medicine, Ho relocated closer to the city district and began to pursue a full time career as a comedian. 

He performed at Melbourne’s Chuckle Theatre in front of the infamous ‘Amateur Night’ audience, but was booed off stage when he opened with a poem he’d written called ‘22 Redneck Avenue’. Ho described this experience as the moment that most inspired him to continue his show business dream. 

He quickly made a name for himself on the Melbourne comedy circuit, even performing in the city’s mall, coffee shops and train stations. In 1986, he won critical and popular acclaim for his television appearance in Darryl Somers’ Comedy Mash on Channel 9. It was this appearance that led him to become a regular guest on late-night television shows such as The Incorrect Hour, and Good Time News.

Ho made headlines for all the wrong reasons in 1986 when was invited to appear on Late Night with Bert Newton for the first time. He had a routine named ‘Live from Ayers Wok’ that he used frequently in comedy clubs, which focused on Lindy Chamberlain. Channel 10 had a policy that no Chamberlain family jokes could be aired on their station. Despite warnings from the show’s producers and genuine assurances from the comedian to nervous channel executives, Ho performed the uncensored routine in its five minute entirety live to a nation on 14 September. Overnight, Ho was banned outright from several Australian cities and venues.

In December, Ho’s first visit to New Zealand caused a media storm when he was booked for a two-night engagement at the Sky City Grand Hotel in Aukland. His first show, on 18 December, led to a major public controversy when was heckled by several audience members during his performance. Aukland’s Mayor, Barry Winters, stood up and complained that Ho was mumbling, then demanded that he speak clearly. Ho responded with a thirty second story that involved the Mayor’s wife and the New Zealand National Rugby team.

By early the next morning, local press had blown the episode up into a major international incident. News reports claimed that Ho appeared to have been deliberately mumbling his jokes, as if to incite the heckling.

Bronston J. Paedamonte had been toying with the idea of signing a comedic act since 1975, and had been a huge fan of Ho’s since seeing the Lindy Chamberlain sketch. He met Ho and now manager great-aunt Shu for a meeting and promised the comedian that no recorded material would be censored or modified in any way by the label. A three album deal was struck.

Caucasian Toxic was released on 1 April 1987, and within a week drew public outrage from the Irish Community, The World Scouting Organisation, The Jewish Defence League, and The RSPCA. After a slow start, Caucasian Toxic sold well domestically but proved to be a massive hit through Asia. 

Despite backlash and constant protests, Ho had a established a solid fanbase and was filling small theatres in any venue that would book him. Before the end of the year he toured through Asia for two months, and then headlined his own show at The Edinburgh Comedy Festival, where he received multiple standing ovations during his set.

In the summer 1988, Ho was the star and a co-producer of the documentary Gung Ho’s Beach Party, which followed him organising and hosting a free concert at St. Kilda Peir on 25 January. Several musical artists, including Maurice Green, Big Pig, and Desiny are featured in the movie, both performing in the concert and in conversation off-stage. Another highlight of the event was the performance of A. B. Caesar and his sister Susan for a temporary reunion of The Burger Brothers (TBB).

Ho’s second stand up album, Convicts on my Mind, recorded over two nights at Scratchie’s Nightclub in Melbourne, was released on 15 May 1988. For most of the performance, Ho went through a collection of books, newspaper articles, and quotations he had brought on stage and proceeded to eviscerate them. 

The album was a major hit on Australian and Asian charts, and also made a strong impression in the American and British markets. It was nominated that year for Best Comedy Album at the American Grammy Awards, but lost out to Mr. Simon.

Following the release of Convicts on my Mind, Ho’s popularity was further enhanced by his role in the critically acclaimed comedy musical West Melbourne Story, directed by Arthur Ling in 1989. Ho sang all of his character’s songs on the film’s soundtrack.

A series of essays, written by Ho, were featured in several magazines including The New Yorker and Playboy, between 1989 to 1990, and he also contributed a number of articles to Paul Kazinski’s satirical magazine The Reality. This material was later published as the book Somebody Call Me a Doctor.

Bronston J. Paedamonte had encouraged Ho to try his hand at screenwriting, telling him, “If you can write a joke, you can write a movie.” With this encouragement, Ho wrote the screenplay for what became the 1991 comedy Thanks for the Coffee, in which he also starred, alongside then up-and-coming rap artist Chris Morley.

Ho gave a famous performance at the Sydney Community Theatre in King’s Cross in December 1991. It was recorded and became his third album, titled Honkie With a Credit Card; his performance here has been described as lucid, clear and calm, and one of his best. It was released on 18 August 1992.

This time it was the Hell’s Angels who went to the media with their grievances on the album’s release. “There are Hell’s Angels jokes I made 15 years ago that I would absolutely not make today, because I am less ignorant than I was.” Ho would later state. “I know more now than I did. I change with new information about bikers… Hang on… Scrap that… I absolutely would make all those Hell’s Angels jokes again today!”

A sequel to Thanks for the Coffee was green lit as the film had earned $28 million worldwide on a $1.5 million budget. This is Good Coffee was released in 1994 and proved to be a major hit in the US and Canada. The next year Ho co-starred in his second collaboration with Arthur Ling as Popsicle the mechanic in Jan’s Laundromat.

“One couldn’t say that he is reinventing his public image as a movie writer or star”, Paedamonte said at the time. “Poor kid’s been blacklisted by nearly every club in the Australia.. Acting.. Writing movies… I think this was Alfred’s plan all along.”

In early December 1998, Ho was a guest on WPL morning radio when he stated that he was to sing at the upcoming Carols by Candlelight performance at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. He proudly claimed to had a written a song for children, which included G-rated humour and a family orientated spin, claiming “It’s time I did something for the kids at Christmas”.

After his rendition of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ at the pageant on 24 December, the Australian High Court officially banned Ho from every stepping foot on any stage, whatsoever, in Australia for life.

In the legal enquiry that followed the incident, it was embarrassingly revealed that Ho had never formally been booked as a special guest for the Carols by Candlelight Pageant. His announcement during the WPL interview had been totally improvised, but had generated such media distraction that when Ho actually showed up to the concert on Christmas Eve, organisers simply assumed he was legitimately part of the line up, and ushered him to centre stage. 

The documentary Hello – I’m Gung Ho, directed by Robert Wilde and narrated by Jack Thompson, was released in 2005. It was nominated for the Australian Film Awards for Best Documentary Feature. Later that year Comedy Central listed Ho at No. 25 on its list of the 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All-Time.

Despite some public rumour and excitement, the standing Australian High Court order prevented Ho from being the host of the Bronson J. Paedamonte tribute show in 2007.