Steven Wright recently became the Boston Comedy Hall of Fame’s first inductee. When Wright took the stage during a celebration on Dec. 15, the audience may have been expecting a dose of his wacky deadpan comedy. But instead, Wright adopted a modest, sentimental tone, acknowledging the various comedians who had assembled for the occasion. First on the list was Mike McDonald.

McDonald met Wright while both were students at Emerson College (also alma mater of Jay Leno and Denis Leary). McDonald mentored the young comedian during his first shaky flirtations with live standup in the late 1970s, advising him to dump the bits that flopped and replace them with new material. They may not have suspected it at the time, but Wright and McDonald were about to help stage a revolution in the Boston comedy scene that would reverberate across the nation.

“That was really a very special time,” said McDonald, who will host the eighth annual Comedy Xxtravaganza at The Music Hall in Portsmouth on Friday, Feb. 13. “We didn’t know it at that point, because we were in it.”

Today, McDonald compares Boston’s comedy scene in the early 1980s to Chicago’s blues scene in the 1950s, when fans could hear Muddy Waters or Willie Dixon on any given night. A typical evening in Boston featured a six-man show with comics like McDonald, Wright, Denis Leary, Kenny Clarke, Bobcat Goldthwait and Kevin Meaney, each of whom earned maybe $40 for the night. Beantown was bursting with undiscovered comedic talent.

“There were just great comics on the scene,” McDonald said. “If you didn’t run hard, it was gonna be apparent that you were the weak link in the chain.”

Headquarters for this tightly knit gaggle of comedians was the Ding Ho, a Chinese restaurant managed by now famous political satirist Barry Crimmins. McDonald and his friends would perform in the restaurant’s comedy club, hang out with the Chinese cooks in the kitchen, booze heavily and play poker until 4 a.m. It was a mad clubhouse for comedians in Cambridge.

But as the figures who patronized the Ding Ho began to gain national recognition, the price tags for their shows went up and they stopped sharing bills in small clubs. The Ding Ho is now long gone, replaced years ago by a Mexican restaurant. “I was stupid enough not to buy it,” McDonald laments.

McDonald appears in the 2005 film “When Stand Up Stood Out,” a documentary chronicling this history of Boston comedy. According to McDonald, most people still don’t realize the degree to which Massachusetts-based comics have pervaded pop culture. Dana Gould, for example, wrote for “The Simpsons” for six years and still does standup. Tom Kenny is the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants and other cartoon characters, while Billy West originated the voices of Stimpy (“Ren & Stimpy”) and Philip J. Fry (“Futurama”). David Cross, Janeane Garofalo and Dane Cook also cut their comedic teeth in Boston.

There is still plenty of talent to be found in the Boston area and beyond. McDonald personally selected three fellow stars to join him onstage at The Music Hall on Friday.

One of those stars is Patty Ross, who splits her time between Boston and Los Angeles. Ross has made frequent guest appearances on TV shows like “Rosanne,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “My Wife and Kids” and others. According to McDonald, she is currently working on a filmed standup piece with the Farrelly Brothers.

“She’s a formidable stage presence,” McDonald said. “Most men wouldn’t dare to sleep with her because she would break them. They would be going home whimpering to their moms.”

Another guest at the Xxtravaganza is Dave Russo, a Boston-based comedian who frequently performs in Las Vegas. Russo won the Best New Comic Award at the Boston Comedy Festival in 2000 and was later selected from a pool of thousands of contestants to be on Wayne Newton’s reality show “The Entertainer.” Russo came in second overall on the show.

Finally, the bill at The Music Hall will feature New York-based comedian Jim David. David has been featured in his own 30-minute Comedy Central special and has been a pundit on the station’s “Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn.” He was also a guest comedy consultant on “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

The event will also include music from pianist Curtis Haynes and, perhaps, a yet-to-be-named guest comic.

McDonald said he turned away several comedians who expressed interest in participating in the Xxtravaganza, narrowing the list to the cream of the crop. “One of my skill sets is being able to look at talent and know quality goods. I can tell what is shag carpeting and what is cashmere,” he said. “If I didn’t think they were funny, I would never put them on the bill with me.”

Like the Ding Ho crowd in the early ’80s, each act on the bill has a distinct style, McDonald said. Every comedian, like every writer or musician, must develop his own unique and inimitable voice in order to make it big. McDonald pointed to examples from the Boston scene 25 years ago. Steven Wright’s laidback monotone was the polar opposite of Denis Leary’s aggressive rant, but both of them gained followings at the same time, in the same place.

McDonald has shared stages with Robin Williams, Drew Carey and Chris Rock, among others. He has performed in 50 countries and has appeared on Showtime, HBO and the Comedy Channel. For the last five months, he has been writing a weekly humor column in OT, a sports magazine published by the Boston Globe. (Visit www.boston.com/sports/ot for the latest installment.)

Known for his sports humor, McDonald created The World’s Funniest Golf Balls, “the choice of fun loving, below average, Mulligan duffing, golfers everywhere.” The line includes Axis of Evil Golf Balls, Ex-Wife Golf Balls, Ex-Husband Golf Balls and others. The site at www.comedygolf.com also includes a series of sketch comedy videos featuring golf tips from McDonald and other comedians.

“I play a lot of golf, being the natural athlete that I am. I’ve actually gotten to the point where I’m not a bad golfer,” McDonald said. But he created the comedy balls for people who take the sport less seriously. “Most people suck at golf, so why not have a good time while you’re out on the golf course?” he said. “I’m trying to cheer people up with my balls wherever I go.”

The eighth annual Comedy Xxtravaganza comes at a time of economic crisis, war, global climate change and other markedly unfunny catastrophes. But McDonald hopes the event will enable guests to take their minds off all the horror for a little while and have a few much needed laughs.

“They’re happy to have something else on their plate to take the blues away,” he said. “Absolutely, we’ll be trying to take away some of the pain.”

Mike McDonald’s Comedy Xxtravaganza begins at 8 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 13, at The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth. Tickets are $34 to $37, with a portion of proceeds benefitting Seacoast Local’s (H)EAT Campaign. Call 603-436-2400 or visit www.themusichall.org.