Carrot Top’s comedy comes fast and furious — props included

TV sitcoms may have never found a place for Carrot Top, but they at least caught up to his pace.

Revisiting this Las Vegas headliner of 18 years duration (the last six at the Luxor), it’s always fun to see how he is the perfect Las Vegas everyman, a guy who really does walk the walk: all the way down the Strip to a casino that seemed closer because of its giant sign, or down the endless, optical-illusion hallways to his room at 4 a.m.

Nothing’s changed on that front. The comedian sometimes known as Scott Thompson turns 48 on Feb. 25, but still works the baggy jeans, Carrot Top souvenir T-shirt and runaway orange mane.

This time, though, I was thinking about how 10 years ago, it seemed more significant that nearly every joke came with a visual gag or audio sound effect. “Stand-up for the generation that grew up on digital movie effects,” I called it.

Now, so much of our comedy is fast and visual that a Carrot Top show seems more like a live version of “30 Rock” or “Community”; manic sitcoms not filmed in front of audiences and edited to a go-for-broke clip.

Respect has always come last for the Top and his eternally juvenile comedy, but detractors ignore the jokes per minute. Or the pace. By the time a bottle of Crown Royal descends like Groucho’s duck about 50 minutes in, it’s a welcome timeout to pour shots for lucky audience members.

Most jokes keep the control booth in overdrive. Some are funnier with Photoshop on the rear screen: changing the Virgin Airline logo on a plane to “Whore Air” because he wants a pilot who has done it before.

Sometimes it’s just audio, such as a sexy female elevator voice that talks back. And sometimes it’s like a full sketch, with Carrot Top trying to make a phone call from Abercrombie & Fitch and convince the caller he’s at the mall, not a gay bar.

And now we’d say some parts are a little “Tosh.0,” though Carrot Top was probably early to the party on letting ridiculous video such as the Shake Weight commercial speak for its own masturbatory allusions.

But for most people, Carrot Top is all about the props. They come at you fast and furious from his seven magic trunks at several points in the show, a mix of old favorites (I always love the redneck jokes, like the “redneck baby carrier,” a Bud 12-pack carton toting a doll) and new creations.

Days after the Super Bowl, the Topper had pasted a Kleenex box to a San Francisco 49ers helmet, and worked in a blackout joke that plunged the whole room into darkness.

The Kardashians and Lance Armstrong get their honorary prop gags, and the topical political commentary about gun control? A Rubik’s cube attached to a pistol to prove you’re smart enough to fire it.

Carrot Top has always sold the act with his own agitated persona and ego-challenged commentary: “The whole show is stupid,” or “I’m not proud of one-third of the (stuff) I come up with.”

But now his longevity justifies a layer of history: video clips of Nicole Kidman not knowing who he is, or journeyman comic Bob Zany edging him out on “Star Search.” Montages of old clips usually start shows by Tim Allen or Roseanne Bar, but it’s another thing to work them into the act and riff on them.

Could Carrot Top do a set without the audio-visual aids? Perhaps. There’s a fun bit about forgetting a cup of coffee on the roof of his car and trying to play it off with surrounding motorists. And it takes a comedian’s mind at work to come up with a joke about how easy it must be to be ZZ Top’s drummer.

But there are lots of stand-up comics to do that stuff, and not many who will end a show stripped down to briefs and a cape after putting on wigs and vamping to rock songs for 10 minutes. Still don’t respect that? Maybe in a few more years, then.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at
mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.