Comedian: Dressier would be nice

Every now and then, Wayne Brady goes onstage at The Venetian and he sees a guy in the front row wearing gym shorts -- and no underwear. What kind of guy does that? And what does that guy say to his wife when they're getting dressed?

Brady imagines he says: "Hey honey, I'm gonna put on my shorts and some flip-flops and no underwear because I'm sure Wayne Brady would love to see these, just so he knows that I've got them."

Brady -- celebrating a year anniversary for his comedy-improvisation show "Making %@it Up" -- says an even more casual couple went to "Phantom of the Opera" at The Venetian. A friend at "Phantom" told Brady a twosome walked in wearing robes.

"Yes, they came ready to see some Phantom action, and they were like, 'Look. I'm kinda sleepy. So if you could just drop the chandelier, that would be cool, because I gotta go to bed,' " Brady says.

Brady says he's grateful and honored tourists and locals keep him in business, no matter what they wear.

"But I feel like I got cheated. I missed the Vegas of old," he says. "I missed when people got dressed up to go to shows," when "these women are in these gowns, and the guys are dapper, and everybody says, 'Hey Kitty,' 'Baby,' 'Hey swing this,' and they gave each other high-fives."

Hearing Brady say this, I tell him tourists at times make Vegas look like one big cruise ship.

"Vegas IS one big cruise ship. Henderson is the Lido deck," he jokes.

Brady isn't the first Las Vegan to bemoan tourist couture. But he does sound like he's yearning hard for classier days.

"How can you come to Las Vegas -- and you've never done this in your life -- (but now) you're like: 'I'm gonna strap this big-ass drink to my neck at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.' I don't know if you're a lawyer in your other life, but right now, you look like a dumb ass."

Brady's show runs 9 p.m. Thursdays through Mondays ($54-$98; 414-9000).

In the rest of Brady's interview on my VegasLand blog at reviewjournal.com: Brady talks about how he and Drew Carey both went from "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" to hosting TV game shows. He discusses why it's important to have a curse word in the title of his Vegas show. And he says Second City may not have closed at the Flamingo if it had been named "Saturday Night Live."

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 702-383-0391 and delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at www.reviewjournal.com/elfman.