Nathan Burton, above, has used reality TV and an afternoon showcase to elevate his profile as a magician. Photos by Clint Karlsen. Gregory Popovich shares the V Theatre with Burton and the stage with eight dogs in his kid-friendly "Comedy Pet Theater."

It's summer, it's hot out there, and you can do worse than sit in an air-conditioned theater to watch a cat pull itself across the chin-up bar by its front feet.

Las Vegas doesn't collectively market itself to families anymore, but enterprising showmen know they are here in the summer and that you can snag them with an all-ages show at a decent price.

The V Theatre in the Aladdin's Desert Passage mall is pulling respectable crowds for back-to-back matinees: "Nathan Burton Comedy Magic" at 2 p.m. and the "Popovich Comedy Pet Theater" at 3:30 p.m. Each begins with a video commercial for its roommate; a full-price ticket for one gets you a half-price ticket for the other.

Burton's show is kid-friendly, though not specifically aimed at youngsters. But you'd feel a little silly leaving them behind for veteran circus performer Gregory Popovich's dog and cat show. I know I did.

Burton has worked hard in recent years to use reality TV as a ticket out of the ranks of unbilled variety acts. He was featured on E!'s "The Entertainer" and is now a contestant on NBC's "America's Got Talent." He'll likely be seen on the show again Wednesday, with viewers determining his fate for a results show the following night.

His brand of comedy magic is a bit different than Harrah's Las Vegas afternoon star Mac King, or acts such as The Amazing Johnathan. The latter emphasizes the comedy, and could function in stand-up clubs without a lot of props or hardware.

Burton turns the formula around, trying to build the humor into the classic stage illusions themselves. It's a good idea, since anyone who has seen at least one magic show would probably recognize the basics of each trick.

The old levitation trick is made over as a "pajama party" number, where the magician crashes the sleep-over and the quartet of dancers/showgirls in skimpy nighties elevate him out of the picture. Stuffing a showgirl into a box on a ladder becomes a whole routine about FedEx (oh, the sponsorship opportunities here).

The "microwave of death" illusion seen on "Talent" is a variation of the transformation cabinet that often produces white tigers in Las Vegas. Here, Burton is "cooked" into a black co-star, Leon Felix.

Punch lines usually come after the illusions, limited mostly to little follow-ups that keep the show moving and reinforce Burton's hard-working, nice-guy personality. If you want edgy comedy or tiger action, keep looking. But for one-stop shopping that incorporates all the basics of a solid magic show -- from the "prediction board" with a young audience member to a straitjacket escape -- you can't go wrong here.

The Popovich show is more offbeat, a throwback to European circus arts mostly left behind in the era of Cirque du Soleil's hip makeovers. The Russian star and his five human co-stars come off like a traveling gypsy show, performing to tinny disco music in old-school costumes such as green waistcoasts with epaulets.

But Popovich, a veteran of the Moscow State Circus and longtime performer at Circus Circus, has a deep bag of tricks that range from juggling to Chaplin-esque comedy. One sequence, in which he attempts to join a circus, actually segues to another that continues the story: a poignant little piece of silent theater in which the rejected tramp shares his food with a friendly dog.

Still, the mere presence of a dog will trump any juggling display, no matter how skillful. Popovich is seasoned enough to work the dog right in, balancing the mutt on top of a contraption that sits on his head. He juggles the balls, the dog catches them in its mouth and returns them via a spiraling clear tube. Now that's showbiz!

Popovich tells the crowd all his critters are rescued from animal shelters. He closes with the trained-cat sequence that landed him on late-night shows back when David Letterman had more hair and Jay Leno's wasn't so gray. You see one cat roll a ball, another jump through a hoop, and wonder why yours can't use a litter box.

It all has the air of a musty, forgotten era that's somehow irresistible. I wouldn't need to see it twice, except I know I need to go back with the 6-year-old to see the "dog school" sequence before this hot summer is over.