Marc Savard is the hypnotist overseeing "Mesmerized," which offers creative setups to its volunteers. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

Hypnotism or amateur improv comedy?

Marc Savard, the hypnotist, probably didn't care which way we called it as long as we were laughing. And laughing we were at Jason and Jane.

Jason did his best Amazing Johnathan crazy-eyebrow thing, slicing up the air as a kung fu master while Jane barked out a form of pigeon-Chinese -- or maybe it was German -- as his translator.

Mind you, neither of these folks struck me as introverts. Before the "Mesmerized" show at Desert Passage mall, Jason presided over his group of folks in a loud shirt with a loud story. After the show, Jane didn't mind posing for photo ops with the "penis pop," the phallic lollipop used in one of the comedy bits that other women in the sequence already had disposed of.

Hence, the key question for "Mesmerized," or, for that matter, two other raunchy hypnotism shows on the Strip. Are those who volunteer for these things really in a state of extreme suggestibility? Or does the "hypnotism" merely provide a cover to free one's inner anus?

The answer, as in just about every hypnotist show you'll see, is, "Sorta depends." (My two cents worth: About half of the 12 subjects seemed convincingly out of it, Jason among them. Jane? Not the whole time, at least.)

Maybe the better question is, if it's funny, how much does it matter? Savard puts less effort into the drama of selling hypnotism than other mesmerists. Maybe he figures we've all seen one of these shows by now. Or maybe he was just playing the best hand he could from a small crowd and couldn't question the integrity of the blowup doll humping, as long as the guys were so intense with their porno auditions.

Because quality control is a big variable in these shows, you need a strong structure or personality to guide them. Savard's patter pulls up way short of Paris Las Vegas competitor Anthony Cools, who has stand-up comedy charisma entirely separate from the hypnotism.

But if you hang in there with Savard, getting past 20 minutes that would make anyone sleepy -- "We're looking for people that have fun personalities" -- the routines pay off.

Some are simple, like the pointed-finger "sleep gun." Others are elaborate, like the near-naked guy who serves as the microphone at the "Weiner Shack" drive-through.

A smart number of them don't rely on the volunteers to be funny. We found out what can go wrong there; a woman called upon to be a "sex therapist" wasn't quite Second City material.

This may be a plus or minus, but "Mesmerized" isn't as relentlessly graphic as Cools' show. And producer David Saxe tries to give it more production value than the usual state fair attraction. If you've seen Saxe's other work, it might not surprise you that the rascal put two dancing girls on side stages to help the audience get through the induction phase that mortally slows most of these shows.

The two dancers also wear nurse uniforms beforehand, circulating trays of kamikaze shots to prospective volunteers. Nice touch, even if you wonder later whether the stripper pole workouts are deep hypnosis or the kamikazes talkin'.