The Prince of Pulverized Produce

Anne Hosier

Friday, Aug. 1, 1997 | 9:40 a.m.

Gallagher can't figure it out:

The Sledge-O-Matic-wielding comedian has just been "discovered" by a French television crew, who want to interview him at the Sahara hotel-casino where he is set to begin a 12-day booking on Friday.

"It's very strange because I've never tried to be anything to the French people," the single-monikered madman mused. "I don't think anything about the French -- to me they're from another planet."

In fact, many would argue that Gallagher -- a comedian who has miraculously managed to sustain a 15-year career splattering plastic-protected audiences with watermelon, peanut butter and other items he smashes onstage -- is the one who's from another planet.

In a telephone discussion earlier this week that could only loosely be described as an interview, Gallagher described some ideas he had for a casino:

"It has an open roof where you can hit a home run over the parking lot, and we're gonna have an automatic pitcher and the pitcher throws the balls into the corner of the casino where a well-known retired baseball player is standing in the evening. And you bet on whether or not he'll hit a home run, and when they do hit a home run."

He continued breathlessly, his voice reaching a feverish pitch: "And when they do hit a home run, it exits the roof of the building and flies over the parking lot so when you pull up to the front of the hotel you can see home runs flying over the building."

There would also be a playground in the lobby next to the reception desk, a race and sports book area with sports figures performing live on little stages, and evening music recitals by kids staying in the hotel. "The kids could go and sit in the audience that don't play music and the ones that do could show off!"

Gallagher, by his own admission, doesn't have the money to pull the project off on his own, but hoped "by putting these ideas in the paper, someone might contact me."

So is he really interested in going into the hotel business? "I'm already in the hotel business. They're just not letting me run the place."

Expounding on this and other topics such as the relative merits of various "snotty" substances like eggs and cactus juice, the Prince of Pulverized Produce left some doubt as to whether he was trying to bare his eccentric soul or just dishing out more of his shtick.

When asked if he has a first name, for example, he snapped: "Unnecessary!The media wants to ruin everything in the sake of selling advertising. You want to say 'he's really just a normal guy and he's even got a first name.' " His tone petulant, he added: "You have to have a mysterious side to be a celebrity."

A town without pity

The real mystery about Gallagher, however, is why he insists on returning to one of the few cities that has consistently failed to embrace him. "I go all around the country and when I come to Vegas, the entertainment capital of the world, I can't find a place for my act! I think, 'Well, maybe I'm crazy!' " he says, his voice rising to a screech. "But everything in that town is crazy! Why don't I fit there?"

Noting that no hotel has ever invited him to perform here and that some have in fact seemed reluctant to rent him a place for his act, he added: "I've never really been sanctioned by Las Vegas. Nobody takes a chance on me." And the prices he ends up paying to rent a room? "They charge me like an Iranian wedding."

A native of Florida, Gallagher pursued various employment avenues before settling on a career in comedy. In the span of a decade, he worked as an entertainer at Quickie's Pancake House and Topless Club in central Florida, as a chief chemist for a Midwestern aluminum company, as a produce-stocker in a grocery store and as a busboy in Las Vegas, where he had hoped to make the transition from clearing tables to working the stage. But it soon became clear that breaking into show biz wasn't going to be that easy.

One day, Gallagher's friend, singer Jim Stafford, came to Las Vegas and told the aspiring comedian: "You're not getting anywhere. Why don't you work with me for awhile?" Gallagher thought it over, then hung up his apron and hit the road with Stafford, working as the singer's manager.

Somewhat ironically, it was Gallagher who ended up getting booked on "The Mike Douglas Show." A second appearance on that show a year later led to a gig at the Dunes -- the same hotel where he bused tables. In the years that followed, Gallagher worked at three different Strip hotels -- all of which have since been torn down.

"I don't know what this says about the Sahara," he said.

Despite his apparent popularity, the comedian couldn't quite compete with Mr. Las Vegas, and soon found himself edged out of the Sands. Dismayed that Wayne Newton was getting booked at the prime times, Gallagher went to the Luxor and tried to persuade them to create a place where he could do his messy act. All they had to do was put a drain in a performance area that was originally slated for a horse act.

"Certainly any place where you can have horse manure, you can have my act," he reasoned. Luxor execs were unmoved by his plight, however. "They poured it in solid, threw down a rug and invited Wayne Newton! So then I went back to the Sands and then they tore it down."

Apparently, it's been downhill for the comedian in Las Vegas ever since.

During the past couple of years, Gallagher says he's been exiled to outlying areas like Mesquite, Laughlin and Stateline. "That's why I jumped on the Sahara finally." But when he makes his return to the Strip tonight, Gallagher will be playing to a far smaller crowd than he is used to, and will rake in less money. "I usually have 2,000 people at a show," he said. "In Vegas I'll be lucky to have 300."

Updated antics

Of those 300, many will be kids, eager victims for Gallagher's latest antics.

No longer content to simply stuff kids in plastic doughnuts (see sidebar), the Sledgemeister now suspends them from a rope swing. His Nerf steamroller, however, remains in storage across the street from the Luxor. "I'm waiting to squash kids!" he cried. "Here's the idea: The kids did something wrong, and they've already had every other punishment. They've had the phone taken away, they've been grounded, they've had to stay in their room, they've had no TV all week, all these things. And (their parents) finally say: 'Well, I'm going to have to let Gallagher squash you with his steamroller.' "

Until the comedian finds a place for his spongy steamroller, however, kids will just have to settle for being splattered with the latest products he has picked up at a local supermarket. Cruising past stripmalls, the comedian typically scans for the store with the fewest cars parked in the lot.

"I don't want to hassle with everybody," he grumbled. "They chase me around in there." Saving his watermelon selection for last -- "if I were to push a watermelon around the grocery store, I would never hear the end of it" -- he peruses the aisles, looking for new and exciting things to explode onstage. Among his recent finds are cactus, (unused) diapers and honey -- "one of the highlights of the show," he said.

"That'll come out of the top of the hammer through a hole and make a golden rod 15 feet high," he said. "It goes all the way up and sticks on the lights. The lighting people are going to hate it."

Aiming the zingers

The chance to irk casino management is just one of the many perks of his job, and whenever he's in town, he incorporates such jabs into his lines: "I make fun of the Mirage for not heating the swimming pool in the back but wasting the gas on the volcano.

"And then I say 'If Caesars World really cared about you, they'd have one of their moving sidewalks taking you back to the sidewalk instead of both of 'em bringing you in, and then when you're really broke, they leave you three fountains from the road."

Of "Mystere," which Gallagher saw on New Year's Eve, he offered this scathing assessment: "The pace of the thing is terribly dull and it ends with a snail, which I think is indicative of the whole thing. I think the funniest thing in 'Mystere' was the guy that acted like me and threw around popcorn."

Gallagher isn't worried that he'll suffer any backlash from casino execs over his jokes, however.

"It doesn't matter if (Steve Wynn) gets mad at me," he said. "I've walked the buffet line at the Mirage, from the buffet all the way out to the jungle and no one recognizes me. There aren't any Americans there."

Still, the comedian is at a loss to explain why he's suddenly popular in France.

"I told my manager, 'This is the kiss of death. Only the French understand me.' "

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