Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

One Carrot

WEEKEND EDITION: Dec. 1, 2002

With his father an engineer at NASA, Scott Thompson may have had a shot at becoming an astronaut. Instead, it's his career that is soaring in the stratosphere.

Better known to the world as Carrot Top, the 36-year-old comic probably travels enough miles each year for more than 200 performance dates to go to the moon and back.

Thompson is a native of Cocoa Beach, Fla., and has homes in Orlando and Los Angeles. He got his start in comedy on an open-mike night while attending Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

The hyperactive comedian, who will be at MGM Grand's Hollywood Theatre from Thursday through Dec. 23, recently spoke to the Sun by phone.

Las Vegas Sun: Have you always been a comedian at heart?

Scott Thompson: Yeah, the class clown, going back to my high school days. I was either telling jokes or being silly, like showing my butt crack or something -- anything to get a laugh. I was always a cutup.

Sun: Was there ever a time you didn't want to be a comedian?

ST: Last night at about 8:30.

Sun: Didn't you ever want to be a cop or something else?

ST: As a kid I always wanted to hang on the back of garbage truck. You always go through a phase and think you want to be a fireman or an astronaut. My dad worked at NASA so I thought being an astronaut would be fun, 'til I realized you had to be smart.

Sun: That's a strange environment for you to grow up and and become a comedian.

ST: Yeah. My dad worked at NASA training astronauts and my brother went to the Air Force Academy on a scholarship -- he was appointed by President Reagan. And I'm building (stuff) with duct tape and glue. What the hell happened?

Sun: How did your Carrot Top character evolve?

ST: I was a marketing major in college, so I was always thinking of ways to market myself. I thought I needed to have something a little different than normal guys, so I thought "Carrot Top" -- a fun name kind of thing, which was a nickname.

My hair was always red. I've never touched it. But I grew it out a little bit long -- actually I grew it out because a girlfriend said I should let it grow longer. When I started doing comedy I realized it was a little more fun onstage -- I could do some things with it that would become comical.

Sun: Do you still do a lot of college dates?

ST: No. I have got it down to one or two colleges a year. I do more casinos and theaters, now. I have reached out to a broader audience than just college kids. It was a slow process. It didn't happen overnight. I started doing a lot of TV -- Regis and the "Tonight Show," which has a much wider audience, and that led to my AT&T commercials.

Sun: Who influenced your prop humor?

ST: Gallagher was always an influence. But going back further, Jonathan Winters -- they used to lock him in a room and say, "Go," and he would start ad-libbing with all these visuals, putting on hats and wigs.

I always thought comedy was funny visually as well as telling a joke. It's great to do both. I'm a big fan of the old school, vaudeville. I said, if I'm going to do this I want to do something completely different than what's happening now. Way back, there were Gallagher and Rip Taylor, but for my generation there wasn't anybody doing prop comedy.

I wasn't the first to do it, but when I was playing colleges it was kind of like the first time the audience had seen it.

Sun: Has your comedy changed since you started in the business 14 years ago?

ST: Totally. The show is a lot bigger, with a lot more in depth. When I first started it was basically me and the props. There wasn't much standup. Now it's a lot more standup mixed in with props. I'll do a whole bunch of stuff just talking. There's a lot more of me onstage than there was when I was first starting out. After doing it for awhile, you kind of find out what you do.

And the show has changed from a visual standpoint -- not just the props, but the stage set, music and pyrotechnics. I didn't have all that when I started.

Sun: Besides your stage shows, you do a lot of commercials and TV shows. Have you ever thought about a series, sort of an "Everybody Loves Carrot Top?"

ST: Yeah, that would work. Since I first started, they've tossed around the idea of a sitcom -- I think it's the general path a comic takes these days. If the right poeple were involved, the idea was solid and there was a good network and good writers, absolutely.

Sun: What about movies?

ST: It's something we're trying to do. Films would be fun, maybe something like the "Ernest" films, kind of a franchise kind of thing. Carrot Top is a solid character. We could do something like "Carrot Top Goes to Camp," or somewhere. It would be for kids, generally.

One of my favorite people is Steve Martin. I look at what he did with his career, going from standup to movies. I use him as an example because he was the wild and crazy guy with props. He made that transition to films.

Sun: How much longer do you see yourself doing stand-up comedy?

ST: I always think about today. I never look too far into the future. As long as I'm doing something in this business, it will be great. Making people laugh is great. Some of my biggest heroes, George Carlin, Bill Cosby, are still going strong.

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