No joke: Comedy TV show stays clean

Last week, a black-owned TV network called TV One transformed a Luxor hotel ballroom into a TV studio, and there taped the entire fifth season of "Who's Got Jokes?" It's similar to NBC's "Last Comic Standing," except funnier and the cast and crew is predominantly black.

That meant there were a lot of "your mamma" jokes, huge in the world of "Who's Got Jokes?" and comedy circles. At Thursday night's taping, two contestants were suddenly told to insult each other's mammas for two minutes.

"Your mamma's so stupid, she went to the dentist and said, 'Can I get a Bluetooth?'"

"Your mamma is like a doorknob. Everybody gets a turn."

"Your mamma has one eye and one leg. They call her Eileen."

On Friday night, the two finalists -- who used to be roommates here in Las Vegas and perform here -- earned the chance to do stand-up for a few minutes in the middle of George Wallace's packed show at the Flamingo.

Some audience members shouted out "your mamma" jokes at Wallace, since that does happen at his interactive show.

An audience guy called out, "Your mamma's so black, when she gets in the car, the oil light goes off."

The look on Wallace's face read: That was a good one. But the legendary comedian volleyed back, "I coulda been your daddy, but your mamma didn't have change for a dollar."

It was always implied that "your mamma" jokes were not meant to be harmful, but old-fashioned comedy.

And "Who's Got Jokes?" -- hosted by Bill Bellamy, co-starring Rodney Perry and Tommy "The Pope of Comedy" Ford -- is especially good-natured. The 24 rival comedians could not curse, or else a point would be deducted from judges' scores. One comedian said "ass" and that alone knocked him out of the finals.

During Saturday's finale, the two finalists -- who go by J. Reid, and the singularly named D'Lai -- kept their mouths clean, and both killed in front of 350 comedy fans with their high energy, confidence and composure.

D'Lai -- a Baton Rouge, La., native who just moved to L.A. after living in Las Vegas for five years, dealing cards at the Wynn -- observed that gambling is so omnipresent, you can gamble at the airport, where "I went to the bathroom, flushed the toilet and won $100."

D'Lai joked that Hispanics are the best of workers, and if they had been enslaved in America, instead of black people, slavery would not have lasted 400 years. "They would have "knocked it out in three summers." "Pick that cotton, boy." "We're finished, puta!"

The other finalist, born-and-raised Vegas native Reid, focused partly on guys who think they're thugs: "Fellas ... you are not a thug if you wear flip flops." Reid joked if everyone went to heaven, homeless crack addicts would too, and they'd cut up heaven's golden streets for drug money and go, "Hey Jesus, can you give me $2 for this?"

One of the judges on Saturday night was boxing champ Evander Holyfield, notable for his longtime appeals to cleaner living, who told me he's a fan of the show's "uplifting, and not degrading" jokes.

"Cursing is just when a person is choosing to be lazy," he says. "You say it's OK to talk about my own color, because I'm black," but people of other colors pick up those jokes and tell them against your race. "If you don't love yourself, you're not gonna love nobody else."

The winner of "Who's Got Jokes?" gets a half-hour special and opens for Wallace for a week.

D'Lai, who claims to be 25, used to go to Wallace's show with "your mamma" jokes to holler at him. When he and Reid lived together, they struggled at their day jobs while building their acts around town.

"We were poor, man. It was bad," D'Lai says. "But we kept working. We kept pushing each other. We'd say, 'We gotta get a bit. We gotta get a bit.'"

Reid, 25 and now a full-time comedian, was at the time a bellman at Mandalay Bay, where, "You got people treating you like (crap) all day. Then you do stand up, and everyone loves you."

On Tuesday, the first time Reid was to perform, his father died. Reid didn't quit. He made it through his round.

The second day he performed, Reid spent the day at the wake, the evening on stage.

On Saturday, he went to the funeral, then headed to the Luxor to perform his last comedy set as his mother applauded from a front row.

"I almost broke down on stage at the end. The emotions -- I had to watch my mother. Even when I was young, watching my mother crying was hard," Reid says. "I kept it together with the help of my father and the grace of God."

On stage and in interviews, Reid never teared.

He smiled and looked forward, trying not to digest it all, just yet.

"Oh, there's a lot of hurt goin' on, believe me," he said. "I cried like a baby at the funeral."

D'Lai, his ex-roommate and current rival, went to the funeral. ("He was a quiet man," D'Lai said.) Backstage on Saturday night, D'Lai looked intently at Reid, knowing Reid had killed with his jokes all week (as D'Lai had), and marveled at Reid's courage "for going out in a grieving moment -- and being funny. That's a lot of intestinal fortitude."

Regardless of which ex-roommate wins, they are thinking of packaging themselves as tour mates.

D'Lai, holding his eyes on Reid with wonder, counted their blessings:

"Me and this guy -- we're best friends. We're winning already."

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