The Amazing Johnathan brings his dangerous act to Las Vegas

Kimberley McGee

Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2000 | 9:53 a.m.

-- The Amazing Johnathan, as he takes swigs from a Windex bottle on stage Monday night.

Kamikaze Comic

Who: The Amazing Johnathan.

When: 10:30 p.m. through Feb. 14.

Where: Congo Room at the Sahara hotel-casino.

Cost: $30 plus tax.

Information: Call 737-2111.

He's known as "The Freddy Krueger of Comedy."

He's the Amazing Johnathan and his style of maniacal, sharp-object-wielding comedy/magic is in town through mid-February at the Sahara hotel-casino.

The shock comedian started out with the best intentions, but found that his true calling was in, well, bizarre stage antics: Piercing himself with a long needle; shoving straws up his nose; cutting off his finger; swallowing his eyeball -- which later pops up on his tongue.

"This whole show evolved from kid shows," he said in an interview before taking the stage on a recent night. "I know it's hard to believe."

The crazed comic -- it's not the first time that moniker has been attached to Johnathan -- was not a mad magician when he started out as a tyke. "I was serious as a kid, I thought I'd be a serious magician one day," he said. "But I was really bad. They were laughing through the show when I didn't want them to."

His lack of finesse in the finer points of magic was the actual attraction: People enjoyed watching him flop. "Birds would get out and cause chaos," he said. "It was a madhouse."

Then comedy came calling.

"San Francisco. I was reared there. Once. I needed the ride."

Performing on the streets of the City by the Bay in the late '70s, Johnathan was inspired by street magician Harry Anderson -- later the star of TV's "Night Court" and "Dave's World" -- who had created his own style of magic by extracting various personal items (i.e., wallets) out of unwitting passersby while an audience giggled.

"Bad magic is great," Johnathan said. "As uncomfortable as you are to watch a bad comic or magician on stage, you still like to see it."

"Did you think you'd get that torn $20 back? It's an illusion! Unfortunately, we are not in magicland. But I am a magician, kind-of-ish."

Because he's been performing "bad magic" for more than two decades, he's started to appreciate the craft of magic more than the comedy shtick that has been his bread and butter.

"Now that I'm older, I'm into magic more. I can do magic well now," Johnathan said.

David Copperfield need not worry. Johnathan's interest in magic stems from respect for the trade. "Magic keeps progressing, not like other arts, like juggling," he said. "You can only throw so many objects in the air and catch them. As technology gets better, so does magic."

He is a member of the exclusive club called the Magic Castle in North Hollywood, where magicians from around the world perform for other magicians. But the comic inside him still peers out from mischievous eyes.

"I go and watch and think, 'What if they screwed up? How funny would that be?' "

"We are going to do a trick with a $20 bill. Ya got one? Sucker."

A big part of Johnathan's act is pulling a hand-picked audience member onto the stage. On Monday, Stephen Aldonis from Amherst, Mass., graciously climbed on stage and stood sheepishly among Johnathan's stage props: household cleaners, oversized cards, a white top hat and sharp metal objects.

Aldonis smiled a little -- uncomfortably -- as Johnathan pulled out a sharp 6-inch steel prong.

"If you move during this trick, it'll feel like it was real! Trust me, it is -- it *&%$! hurts! No, nobody gets hurt up here for real."

"The guy gets tortured up there, he gets abused but he is having fun at the same time," Johnathan said. "The audience likes to see someone up there squirming."

Aldonis proclaimed the point of the steel prong as dull, turning the tables on the veteran comedian. "It keeps it fresh for me," he said. "If I'm using a different guy on stage every night, it's a bit unpredictable."

"Now, put your feet closer to the ground. I saw you try."

The spontaneity of the bumbling and slightly nervous audience member on stage has been a part of Johnathan's act for 20 years, but he still makes it seem as if it just occurred to him to pull the gentleman out of the crowd.

"The trick is to make what looks to be spontaneous, real," he said. "I'm reacting to the guy and mentally I'm going to a Denny's."

Sometimes his evening's choice doesn't agree with Johnathan's sense of humor, particularly after he shreds their $20 bill. "I've had guns pulled on me, I've been punched," he said.

But that's not as bad as no reaction at all.

"Sometimes they will sit down for no reason at all," Johnathan said, exasperated. "That throws me, even today. When they go and sit down it takes everything you've worked for all out of you."

Sometimes, the newly-appointed sidekick will try to upstage the maniacal magician.

"If he is lying about his name, touching the props when I'm not looking or has a smart answer for everything, then I know to get rid of them," Johnathan said.

But once they've climbed on stage and become part of the act for 10 minutes, "you are stuck with them," he said. "Sometimes they look perfectly sober -- and they are drunk on stage. I've had to deal with a million different things."

Back at the act, he planted a big kiss on Aldonis, who is surprised and hoping that's as far as the big comedian wants to go on his first time on stage.

it "He looked vulnerable. I took the chance."

In the early stage of his career, Johnathan was a serious magician. At a strip club. In Alaska.

"That situation is not conducive to a magic act," he said. "The (emcee) would come out and say 'Do you want to see some naked women?' and the crowd would go 'Yeah!' then he'd say, 'Well, first here's a magican.' They didn't want to see me. They booed and hated me."

To put it mildly. He became thick skinned quickly from the constant barrage of expletives. He had a friend send insult books to him in his cold abode, where he memorized 200 insults. For his stage performance, he used tiny cheat sheets to scribble them down. Insults such as: "I do my act like you have sex -- alone." And "You aren't the biggest (jerk) in the world but you better hope he doesn't die.'

These days he doesn't get much bad banter from the audience. "Using a guy on stage squashes the heckling," Johnathan said. "They don't heckle their own."

And he may be in Las Vegas longer than his five-week stint at the Sahara. "I'm training myself to be there all the time," he said. "In the long term we want to end up finding a place to call home (in Las Vegas), get a permanent gig in one of the showrooms."

"We" includes his wife, Psychic Sandra, a permanent assistant with his stage shenanigans, which include a deck of cards and a staple gun in lieu of a blindfold, which she left in the car. (That's part of the act.)

"The worst part of this is traveling -- after 20 years you get burned out," he said.

It's not just the buffets and barflies that attract him to Las Vegas. It's the abundance of showrooms and the consistency. "I like the fact that I don't have to travel and the audience is constantly new," Johnathan said. "It seems like the only place to make good money and not travel."

"What a cunning stunt. (He pauses while the audience thinks about what he has just said.) Nice to see we have some dyslexics in the crowd."

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