Laughter echoed through the halls of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center on Wednesday night, the product of a double-header comedy show that had been in the works since the very beginnings of the film center.

“Tonight we have a show which...I’ve been working on for 20 years, believe it or not,” said director and founder Richard Paradise of his mission to have Boston comic and longtime Chilmark resident Lenny Clarke perform at the center. “For 20 years I’ve been asking him to do another comedy show,” he said.

Mr. Clarke finally agreed but he also had a request.

“In that package deal, he said you’ve got to have my good buddy Jimmie “JJ” Walker,” a Bronx-born comedian, best known for his breakout role in the sitcom Good Times, which aired on CBS from 1974 to 1979.

It wouldn’t be quite right to declare the two comics, who boast nearly a century of combined stand-up experience, as a ‘fire and ice’ duo, for as different as their styles are, they both bring a large dose of fire.

The two comics have been performing together for decades.

Jeanna Shepard

The two comics have been performing together for decades.

Jeanna Shepard

Mr. Walker is urgent and emphatic, his voice easily carrying up to the nosebleeds. Mr. Clarke is speedy and often crass, relentlessly taking the audience along for a ride, and never hesitating to make them, and himself, the butt of the joke along the way.

“We’re very different acts,” Mr. Clarke said, during an interview in the greenroom before the show. “Jimmy’s very professional, clean. I’m filthy.”

Mr. Walker might end a story with an exasperated “and son of a sea dragon, boom! It happened!” while Mr. Clarke’s commentary, delivered in his characteristic Boston brogue, is often unfit for print. Still, the odd-couple have formed a decades-long friendship, performing together often on the touring circuit.

“We met almost 40 years ago, in Vegas, and I was very impressed,” Mr. Clarke said. Ever since, “any time I can, I perform with Jimmy Walker.”

Still, the pair come from very different backgrounds.

Mr. Walker, who performed some of his earliest shows in late-60s Harlem, recalled during the interview his first touring days on the so-called ‘Chitlin Circuit,’ a network of venues which served as the mainstream debut for many of the biggest Black musical acts of the era, from James Brown to Tina Turner to the Jackson Five.

“People now wouldn’t even have any concept... but white people and black people were not allowed to be together, at all. At all,” Mr. Walker said, detailing the dire warnings of southern promoters to not interact with the white audiences, and especially the women.

“And there was no eating afterwards because we couldn’t go to any of the restaurants,” Mr. Walker said. “We’d have to go to the other side of town.”

After making his name as a stand-up, Mr. Walker was cast on the hit CBS sitcom Good Times. Over the course of the show’s six-season run, his character J.J. became a breakout star, as did his iconic catchphrase, “Dy-no-mite!”

Mr. Walker has appeared in various roles since, but always returned to stand-up as his passion.

“Jimmy J.J. Walker has not been off television, not one day, in the last 57 years ladies and gentlemen!” he said, during his set. “A sad commentary on American television,” he added, to much laughter from the crowd.

Mr. Clarke also made the transition from stand-up comedy to CBS early in his career, starting as a Boston-based comic in the early 80s.

“[The stand-up scene] was nonexistent in Boston, so I had to go to New York,” he said. “I’d take the train down, go over, wait in line, get a number — they usually put me on last — and I’d do the show and take the train back and work the next day.”

Mr. Clarke landed a starring role in his own sitcom, Lenny, in 1990.

“The transition for me was fantastic,” he said. “It was a big hit, everything was good, then the first Gulf War broke out and the show got canceled.”

He continued to play parts in television and movies in the years since, including There’s Something About Mary, Rounders and Fever Pitch, to name just a few, while also maintaining his stand-up career.

“If I do good here, who knows what’s next, maybe the Ag hall!” he joked during his set.

With so much touring experience between them, the duo agreed that not just any pair of comics can work well together on a double booking.

“You have to be with somebody you’re compatible with,” Mr. Walker said.

According to Mr. Clarke, the pair’s chemistry come’s naturally.

“I think the fact that our friendship has been so strong for so long, that means I think we entertain each other,” he said. “The time we spend together, I really cherish.”

And after a lifetime of performing at venues across the country, neither comic shows any signs of stopping.

“Well, people, here we are,” Mr. Walker said as he began his set, just after sending off Mr. Paradise, whom he referred to as the “Master Blaster.”

“The lovely Martha’s Vineyard, ladies and gentlemen. Why not?!”