Atlantic City Weekly

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Brian Regan’s rise to fame came slowly. He spent the aspiring stand-up’s mandatory time doing cramped clubs and small festivals across the country until breaking through big-time in the mid-1990s. His stand-up act around that period would eventually be captured on a Comedy Central special, thousands of Internet sites and a live CD. It was around this time when Regan’s hilarious bits like “You Too & Stuff,” “The Eye Doctor,” “Food Combinations” and “The Donut Lady” could be heard pouring out of dorm rooms and from behind office cubicle walls across our comedy-dependent nation.

Over the past five years or so, Regan’s star has continued to rise, selling out theater tours — since 2005 he’s visited about 80 cities a year — releasing a pair of Comedy Central DVDs — Brian Regan Standing Up (2007) and The Epitome of the Hyperbole (2008) — raising a family and appearing on numerous late-night TV shows, all while doing what he loves: coming up with “goofy things.”For his second interview with Atlantic City Weekly — he spoke to us right before the first of his four Borgata appearances back in 2006 — Regan called from Las Vegas, right before a five-night stint in Salt Lake City.

Are you doing a lot of interviews today?
One day a week I knock a bunch out and this is that day. I’m happy to do it. No hurry.

The Salt Lake City shows that you [started March 10] was that the start of your current tour?
This current tour started in around May of 1984.

The Never Ending Tour.
Yes, the Never Ending Tour. You know it’s weird. Bands do it differently. They come out with a new album or CD and they go out for three or four months to promote it. Comedians go out on tour and then you never see
them again.

Except for Bob Dylan. He’s had his Never Ending Tour going since about 1988. Four years after yours started.
Yeah, he stole my idea!

Did you hear the Bob Dylan Christmas album?
No!

Have you heard anything about it?
I have heard that there’s a Bob Dylan Christmas album. It’s almost like an oxymoron. Is it good? It’s got to be
good, huh?

Yeah, it’s good. I mean you can definitely enjoy it during the holiday season.
My wife and I went to see Barry Manilow here in Las Vegas and it happened to be a couple weeks before Christmas. So, I’m already like, you know, not proud of the fact that I’m telling people I’m going to see Barry Manilow, but at least you want to hear the [hit] songs. And he says, “You know with Christmas coming up, I think it would be great to just sing some of the great holiday songs that we’ve all come to know and love.” And everyone in the crowd is like, “Yay!” And I’m like, “NO!” And he’s on stage singing, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and I’m like, I don’t need [to hear] that song! I don’t need to pay $75 a ticket to listen to Barry Manilow singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer!” It’s not that good of a song and you don’t sing it that well! Sing your songs Barry!  
 

I just watched ‘The Epitome of the Hyperbole’ and the ‘Dora the Explorer’ bit was great. You have two kids, what other kid shows are you into? Ever see the show ‘Kipper’?

Oh yeah. Do I have the right theme song? [Starts singing the theme song] Kipper ... da, dah, dum ...

It’s a bit jazzier: “Kipper the dog. The one with the slipper, that’s Kipper. Kipper the dog.”

[Laughter] You know if your main character is Kipper, you know the word “slipper” is going to be in the theme song. It’s almost a given. ... You know there must have been a deadline. [The songwriter] must have said, “They said they wanted this theme song at noon and I got one lyric that I just can’t nail down. Let me send in this version and see if it flies.”

Right. Like the song “I’m the Map” from ‘Dora.’

Yeah. [Starts singing the song like he does on his DVD] “I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m the Map.”

You’ve appeared at the Borgata a few times over the past four years or so.

The Borgata’s always a fun place. It’s a wide kind of room so you have to really kind of work it, you know? You got to walk way over to the right, and walk way over to the left, and you’ve got to come up with jokes that have to do with width. You have to go, “Hey, what’s the deal with the wingspan on the Wright Brothers first plane? I mean that wingspan went from way over here to way over here! You’ve got to utilize your space.”

People love you as a comedian and you’re always working. Do you find there’s a pressure on you to keep churning out new material?

Well, I don’t feel it as a pressure because I just naturally like to think about goofy things. And so, anytime I’m doing a show I have one or two brand-new or relatively new things that I’m kicking in — I mean from night to night — and every time you add something, something falls by the wayside, and it just seems kind of natural that after about a year and a half or two years you get kind of a turnover. [So] when people come back out, hopefully they’re going to see a bunch of stuff that they didn’t see the previous time.

Does your 11-year-old son get to watch your comedy? I mean it’s pretty family-friendly.

Yeah, he does, but — I know that there are kids out there who are even younger than my son who like my comedy, and that’s cool for me, but I want my kids to think of me as just Daddy, you know? And maybe there’s also this deep-rooted fear that if I did put something on and [my kids] are like, “Oh, brother this is what you do Daddy?” That would crush me, you know? But one of my coolest on-stage moments was about a year ago, we traveled as a family to a show [of mine] and it was a big outdoor kind of thing and one of the first times my son was really able to check the show out and I was on stage and I just reached back to take a sip of water and my wife had put our little boy on like a speaker right behind the stage, but I could see him. And I reach back to take a sip and I see my son there and he’s just laughing like crazy and waving at me and I was just like, oh, man. It was just so — I mean you don’t want to get corny, but that meant more to me than turning back and having this crowd filled with people. It’s like, “Hey, I could care less about all you folks; I’m making my son laugh!

Speaking of the crowds out there, what’s one of the strangest or most memorable meet-and-greet experiences you’ve had?

Oh, there are just all kinds of bizarre things. I came out of a restaurant one time and this longhaired guy with his head down, just kind of shuffling along, was on the sidewalk. And this guy just walked right passed me and doesn’t even look at me. He walks about 10 feet, I’m not even really paying attention other than the fact that he stopped, turned around, walks back to me and then he looks up and he goes, “Dude, you’ve got the hugest following among pot smokers.” I’m like, “Wow, thanks man.” And then he put his head back down and shuffled off into the sunset. It was really cool. I was like, “Wow, alright. I didn’t know I had the pot-smokers out there. I got them now.”

Not to put down your comedy, but I guess anything could be funny to a pot smoker.

Right, you could watch Gunsmoke and laugh for an hour! Hey, I’m the Gunsmoke of comedy!

That could be a good name for your next DVD: “The Gunsmoke of Comedy.”

[Laughs]

Do you have any interest in doing movies or television?
Well, I was on a Web page last night because I was curious as to who had won the most Academy Awards in their career. Do you know who the answer is? I’m talking about an actor or an actress. [Starts singing Jeopardy! theme song.] We’re gonna have this interview me quizzing you like Jeopardy! You got four more questions after this! Then we go into the bonus round.

I’m drawing a blank. Can you give me the initials?
K.H.

Katharine Hepburn?
There you go. She has four. Then there are three people who have three. And there is a whole bunch who have won two. So that’s my new goal. I want to win five Academy Awards. And the first thing I have to do is to pass an audition. [Laughs] So once I get that out of the way then I’m going to go for five Academy Awards.

Well, you have a long time. You’re pretty young.
Yeah, I hate to break it to the Hepburn family there, but that title is going to fall.

But seriously, would you have any interest in a sit-com or anything?
I would have an interest in that, yeah. It isn’t like a burning something like I have to do it, but yeah. I mean, I like doing stand-up and this is what I always want to do, but I would take a little break here or there to do something that was— if it was a TV show I’d want it to be about my comedy, but if it was a movie, man, if I could just get a tiny, little role or something like that? Yeah, that would be fun. I’ve never done anything like that [and] I’d be open to that. That would be cool.

Yeah, TV could use someone like you in relation to a new sit-com in my opinion.
I appreciate that. You know, but that would have to be about [my comedy.] You know, Jerry Seinfeld got very fortunate — Well, fortunate? He probably demanded that [Seinfeld] be about his comedy and that he have creative control. So if I did something like that I’d want it to be about my comedy and not about me just being some lead in a sit-com or something.   
 

On your current tour, you have five nights in Salt Lake City, but only one night most other places. What’s the deal?

I tend to work clean and I think because of that — obviously there’s a large Mormon community in Utah and Salt Lake City in particular and they’re partial to that kind of comedy. It came as a surprise to me a couple years ago. I had never even performed there and I was getting comments on like my guestbooks, you know? “Hey, you should play Salt Lake City!” And I was like, OK, let’s book a show there and see what happens. Next thing I knew — it was very flattering. I was like, wow, these people seem to like what I do. So I’m cool with it. If they are, I am.

Brian Regan on refridgerators:

Brian Regan on refrigerators:

What’s your favorite Atlantic City Boardwalk moment?

My favorite Boardwalk story, it’s a true story, there was some kind of little arcade thing there, you know? This is years ago and I’m walking around and they have this little arcade game where you throw these balls into a basket and there are these big stuffed animals behind the guy. And there’s a sign that says, “Put two out of three balls into the basket and you win a big stuffed animal.” So I go, OK, I’ll give it a try and I put the 50 cents down and they give me three golf-ball type of things. I threw the first one and the first ball went right through the basket and I was like, whoa, I only need one more! Second ball hits the basket and bounced out. The third one, I tried to throw it like the first one, and boom! It went into the basket! I’m like, I got myself a big stuffed animal. So the guy reaches under the counter and hands me this stuffed animal that — and I’m not joking — was about five inches long and he throws it on the counter and goes, “There you go.” And I say, “No, no, no! The sign says that I won a big stuffed animal.” And he goes, “Yeah” and he points to the little thing. “Yeah, that’s the big stuffed animal.” And then he points to the ones up behind him and goes, “Those are huge.”

[Laughter] How do you win a huge one?

[Laughter] I don’t know. I guess you have to hit like 500 in a row or something to win one that’s huge. And then I look at the huge ones and they were like bolted into the walls behind the guy. Those things never move!

Brian Regan
Where: The Borgata, Atlantic City
When: Saturday, March 20, 8pm
How Much: $43.50