Friday, Dec. 12, 2003 | 8:41 a.m.
If you can't find something nice to say about Dom Irrera, well, you'll likely make his day.
"Imagine if I was just nice," the comic ponders. "The audience would be walking out going, 'That Dom Irrera -- really nice guy, never made me laugh, I'd never come to see him again, but what a nice person.' That's kind of boring, you know."
As it is, after more than two decades in the business, boredom is an issue Irrera -- who headlines Monday through Dec. 21 at Riviera Comedy Club -- is often forced to confront.
Over the years the Philly-born-and-bred funny man has put to pasture some of his biggest bits -- including his Italian-guy signatures "Joey Bag-a-Donuts," "Little Petey/Big Petey" and "Badda-Boom, Badda-Bing" -- that helped garner him a solid fan following worldwide. Still, the jokes return to haunt him.
"If people really want me to do them, I'll do them. I'm not above my own act, but I have to mix it up," Irrera explained recently from his Los Angeles home. "I appreciate it, but at this point, I can't win because if I don't do it, they're gonna go, 'Man, we drove 40 miles and you didn't do the 'Little Petey' bit' ... And if I do it, somebody else is going, 'What are you, the Beach Boys? Why do you do the same stuff? Let it go.' I'm not complaining, because at least I have bits that people remember."
For that reason, he packed his recent first CD, "Greatest Hits -- Volume One," with selections from his oldies-but-goodies file. He sells the disc, which he co-produced with a friend, on his website, www.domirrera.com, but rarely at the multitude of live shows he performs each year.
"I don't like selling them, it's just not my style," explains Irrera, who declines to reveal his age ("I'm a stud at 78," he quips). "The people already paid to get in to see me, how much more money do I have to make? I don't feel like hawking something."
The six-time American Comedy Award nominee and two-time Cable Ace Award winner also prefers not to practice ripped-from-the-headlines-style comedy. "I try to stay away from the topical stuff, unless it's really making people gut-laugh." Instead his act is peppered with anecdotes derived from personal experiences and his large Italian family, among others.
That's not to imply that Irrera's insult-and-expletive-laden shows are family fare. Much of his subject matter -- including jokes built on ethnic and racial caricatures -- is not for the faint of heart.
Nevertheless, he contends using obscenities "gratuitously is a lack of writing and acting effort -- not that I can't get lazy like anybody else, it's not that I'm so perfect. If I'm using (an expletive), it's because ... it will come out of the character, not because I can't think of something funnier to say."
A veteran of the late-night talk-show circuit (he's guested numerous times on the gab fests of Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart, and most recently has appeared on Comedy Central's "Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn"), Irrera is often asked if he's able to perform "clean" routines. His matter-of-fact answer: "You can't do that many 'Tonight Shows' and 'Lettermans' and all that without being clean."
"My whole thing is to have fun and be funny," he says. Audiences are "out there to laugh -- not to hear my philosophy, and not to be stunned by this revealing thing. Everything's been said; there's no dirtier word I can think of; there's no more profound thought than philosophers have said, so I just want to be silly and make 'em laugh."
Despite his career success and longevity, Irrera contends, "I don't know how to write a joke ... I don't know the formula, so whenever something comes out, I either heard it from a person in a real conversation, or it just comes out of life. I'm not good at making stuff up."
Though he's had bits "ripped off" by other comics, "I don't pay attention to it much, because it's an anger that doesn't go anywhere," he says. "You become like the comedy cops, and it doesn't help anybody."
Of course there was the time he claims he was robbed by none other than Jerry Seinfeld.
"I don't know what was going on in his head. I asked him for help with a bit, and then two weeks later he did it on Letterman. So I called him up and said, 'Jerry, thanks for helping with that bit, for trying it out on national TV so I can do it at Banana's (comedy club) next week.' "
Irrera appeared on Seinfeld's celebrated sitcom, as well as dozens of others including "The Drew Carey Show," "The King of Queens," "Becker," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Home Improvement," and was a co-star on "Damon," which starred Damon Wayans. Irrera also had recurring voice roles on Comedy Central's animated series "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist" and the Nickelodeon cartoon show "Hey Arnold!"
His big-screen forays include playing himself in 1998's "The Godson" (starring Rodney Dangerfield, who Irrera credits for giving him one of his first big comedic breaks); and roles in "Hollywood Shuffle" and "The Big Lebowski."
Acting, he says, "makes you a better stand-up, to work with other people every once in a while, to not be so self-involved all of the time, because stand-up is such a solitary thing. When you're acting, you have to listen a little."
Just don't ask Irrera why he's never had a sitcom of his own -- or risk learning firsthand why he's content to not be a nice guy. "Somebody said to me, 'It's a shame you don't have a sitcom,' and I just said, 'Thank you.' I felt like saying, 'It's a shame you're 42, you live with your mother and you work at Chuck E. Cheese's.' "
Out for laughs
The Comedy Stop closes for the holidays beginning Monday, though Dec. 25. The club at the Tropicana reopens Dec. 26 with Kevin Knox, Joe Yannetty and Mitchell Walters on the bill.
It ain't easy being named Kermet -- take it from a guy who knows. On his website, Hawaii native Kermet Apio writes that his unusual moniker is likely what prompted him in 1990 to quit his day job and hop into a comedy career. After so many years in the business, at least he's no longer green. But enough frog humor: Apio, who can be heard regularly on the National Public Radio program "Rewind," takes the stage Jan. 19 through Jan. 25 at Catch a Rising Star at Excalibur.
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