3 Responses

1. The Five Three says:

   April 14, 2009 at 10:43 pm

   I get tired of non-comedians speaking of comedians who “RELY” on language. We don’t “RELY” on the language, we merely “USE” certain language, whether it be clean or not. I don’t use adult language because I “RELY” upon it to make a joke funny. I “USE” adult language because I’m an adult, and it’s how I speak. Dirty or Clean, the speaker should be sincere. That’s what it should really be about.

   It’s 2009. Surely adults can be adults in an adult environment with adult beverages, speaking of adult situations, with other adults and use adult language without acting like prudish nuns..?!

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2. Guy MacPherson says:

   April 15, 2009 at 4:59 pm

   Hey, looks like I scooped CNN. Of course, if a tree falls in the forest…

   I interviewed Regan two years ago. The focus wasn’t on his clean act, but I had to eventually address it:

   GM: You’re known as a clean comic. Was that always the way from the beginning or did you evolve into that?
   BR: It wasn’t always the way.

   GM: Aha! So there’s a dark side to Brian Regan!
   BR: Oh, yes, if people only knew. My wife and my friends say, “If your fans only had a clue about the things that can come out of your mouth.” (laughs)

   GM: So it’s a conscious decision for you to work clean. At what point in your career did you move that way?
   BR: I was always mostly clean anyway. Probably 90-95 percent of my stuff was always clean anyway. I just happen to think that way. I’d have a handful of jokes where I had the f-word or I might have a sexual reference here and there. But I started to realize that on a given night when I just happened to not do any of the dirty stuff, I would get all of these comments from people after the show saying, “We thought you were really funny and we liked the fact that you were clean.” Whereas the other nights it would just be, “Wow, we thought you were really funny.” And I started thinking, if you’re that close to the finish line anyway why not just put the ball over the line? It seemed kind of silly to be 95 percent clean. You might as well be 100 percent clean and see what happens. So I just decided to go that way 100 percent. You know, it’s tricky deciding how to promo myself. I ask my press people, I don’t want anything in our press credentials saying clean. Unless it was something that was included in a newspaper article or something like that. But I don’t like to tout it myself.

   GM: Yeah, it’s kind of a dirty word.
   BR: Exactly. It’s like putting a G-rating on a movie. You might turn more people away than would come in. And I feel the same way about a comedy show. I wouldn’t want people thinking, “Oh, he’s this real candy-ass, wholesome comic.” I like the fact that I have a pretty nice following with young people. And some of them I don’t even think realize that it’s clean or care one way or the other. There are some young people who like that, as well, where they go, “Hey, man, I like the fact that it was clean.” But I never want the point of the comedy to be clean; that’s just an asterisk.

   GM: I know of a few really dirty comics, for lack of a better word, who still think you are amazing.
   BR: That’s an incredible compliment, man. That kind of stuff makes me feel great to know that my peers seem to like what I do, and even my peers who do stuff that isn’t even close to what I do. And to find out that somebody who works really blue likes my comedy is a nice feather to put in my cap. But I think it’s just sort of like music. A reggae artist can like classical music and a jazz artist can like rock and roll. You can appreciate what somebody on the other side of the tracks is doing.

   GM: Bob Newhart has said that his favourite comic is Richard Pryor.
   BR: Look at that.

   GM: Are there blue comics that make you laugh?
   BR: Sure! Absolutely. Chris Rock makes me laugh. I don’t know that you would consider him blue, but there’s certainly a lot of language in his act, you know? Richard Pryor was arguably one of the best standup comics who ever lived and he had the M-F word throughout a lot of his stuff. There are current guys out there: Nick DiPaolo is a very funny guy out of New York. Very acerbic and has a lot of rough language but he’s just funny to the bone. He makes me laugh like hell. So there are plenty of guys who work blue who I think are great. That’s why I’m always careful to make it clear that I never stand up on a hill saying clean comedy is better than dirty comedy. Clean comedy is just what I like to do, that’s all.

   You can read the whole thing here: http://comedycouch.com/interviews/bregan.htm

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3. john conroy says:

   April 15, 2009 at 7:07 pm

   thanks Guy, that interview was a much more enjoyable read than the CNN one

   Reply