No, that’s not a typo in the title… but more about that later.

While Brian was onstage at the Just For Laughs comedy club here at the Sands Regency in Reno, Traci was chilling in the hotel room, surveying the Thursday night offerings via crappy cable. Being the editor and publisher of the WWW’s M.B.M.A.S.C.*, she manages to catch any/all standup-related TV programming… it’s spooky almost, like a One Degree Of Separation from standup comedy game.

LAST COMIC STANDING

Congratulations to John Heffron for being the last comic standing. (Someone tell us where the payoff is for Mr. Heffron! NBC has announced that he and the 19 others who’ve made it to the house over the last two seasons will slug it out in L.C.S. III. He’ll wear the crown for only ten weeks! Unless he wins again! (That’s not likely. We’ll go out on a limb here and predict that Ralphie May will “win” L.C.S. III.)

Traci: “If Ralphie May is going to pretend to be black, he might as well pretend to be thin! Or female! They all slammed Dat Phan for being so calculated, yet they let Ralphie May off the hook! I’m not slamming either one on their ability to do standup, but they’re both extremely contrived. And in his routine on the final episode, Phan complains that he’s being typecast as an Asian with an accent… when it was the Asian with an accent character that endeared him to millions and enabled him to be the first Last Comic Standing!”

We gotta admire Alonzon Bodden, though. He came out and met his chat room critics head-on by saying, and we’re paraphrasing here, “There’s no such thing as a mean joke. It’s either funny, or it’s not funny. If I hear a funny joke, I laugh. I don’t form a focus group to find out if anybody got hurt.” He also complained, bitterly but to humorous effect, about the criticism that he did too much material about being black. “I am black!” he said, somewhat bemused, somewhat exasperated.

LATE LATE SHOW…WITHOUT CRAIG KILBORN!

First New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, now Craig Kilborn! A gay affair? No! A resignation! We were stunned to hear that Kilborn is leaving the show in two weeks! (Read about it here.) We hear it has something to do with money… Anyway, we nominate Jimmy Pardo to take over the position left vacant by Kilborn’s exit. Or Dave Chapelle! NBC is talking about snaring Conan.

BALDERDASH!

Speaking of Jimmy Pardo, Skene caught him in her TV dragnet last night, spotting him as one of the celebrity panelists on Elayne Boosler‘s game show Balderdash (a show we told you about on these very pages just months ago)! Also on the panel were Eric Roberts and Tammy Pescatelli. Pardo managed to upstage Roberts. He parodies the show biz thing to tremendous comic effect. Perhaps because he does the show biz thing so well. If, while watching a parody, you must occasionally question if it is indeed a parody, you’re witnessing the finest parody there is. (Memo to NBC: Pardo hosting Late Late Show, with Jim Gaffigan as the sidekick. With They Might Be Giants as the house band. Just John and John, no backup.)

CELEBRITY BOXING?

What does Celebrity Boxing have to do with standup comedy? Take a look at the undercard: When the person beating the crap out of aging 70’s-era gymnastic icon Olga Korbut is none other than Darva Conger– your One Degree of Separationg leads to Rick Rockwell, whom Conger married as part of Fox’s Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire. Need another standup connection? How about the Main Event: Ron Pallilo (TV’s Horshack) going toe-to-toe with Dustin Diamond, (Screech from Saved By The Bell), who, we recall, hit the comedy club circuit a few years back with less than satisfying results. (We hear he handled it all with grace and generosity, however… the comedy circuit, that is.) Skene notes that the ring announcer, Philly-born ex-model, Michael Buffer (“Let’s get ready to rummmmbbblllle!”), prefaced the whole sordid affair by taking a moment “to honor America with the singing of the national anthem…” If they truly wanted to honor America, Skene said, “they might consider cancelling Celebrity Boxing! It makes Man Vs. Beast look like Masterpiece Theater!”

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

Skene also spotted one of our favorites, Ron White on Blue Collar TCV, the Jeff Foxworthy headed sketch show. We were wondering why White wasn’t included in all the pre-premiere hype of the WB show. (Or is it UPN? We get them confused!) But there he was! Smoking and drinking, too! On TV! In primetime! Like or not, the show, Skene says, “is damn consistent. It does what it wants to do and does it well. Ya gotta admire its consistency!”

Sands Regency Hosts Hearing Impaired Group!

The hotel is rapidly filling with hearing-impaired folks. (We’re not sure what the occasion is, but judging from the numbers, we’re certain it’s not a coincidence!) Just For Laughs host/house emcee James Bean is scouting around for a crack signer– someone proficient in American Sign Language– who might be recruited to stand onstage during our sets and sign our acts to the hearing impaired in attendance, maybe at a special late night Friday or Saturday show! We’ve performed in blackouts, we’ve performed without a sound system; this would be a challenge on a grand scale. We’ll keep you posted on the eventual outcome!

Also performing in Reno: Jimmy Pardo, Chipper Lowell (at the Improv in Tahoe), Chirs Clobber, Joby Saad (Catch at the Silver Legacy), and in the big rooms this weekend are Carrot Top at the Silver Legacy and Louie Anderson at John Ascuaga’s Nugget.

From the feature in Thursday’s Reno-Gazette Journal:

“After a concert, I get comments like, ‘Wow, the show’s a lot better than I thought it’d be, a lot smarter, bigger.'”

From the same paper, different feature:

“The first time on stage, I wasn’t as nervous as you might expect,” Anderson said, “I remember that whatever jitters I felt were overwhelmed by the exciting prospect of all the attention and love seated in front of me. With the first laugh, I knew I was hooked– a junkie for life.”

* The WWW’s most beloved magazine about standup comedy, hereinafter to be denoted by the acronym WWWMBMASC.