Carrot Top props up ribald image in MGM performance

By Jerry Fink

Monday, March 29, 2004 | 8:06 a.m.

The late Joe Delaney, the Las Vegas Sun's entertainment columnist for 35 years, did not like Carrot Top's comedy.

"Those attending sat for some time watching the hodge-podge set, assaulted by taped rock 'n' roll cranked up to the edge of one's tolerance," Delaney, who died in 2002 at age 80, wrote in 1997.

"At least half of his monologue consisted of equal use of the Big 'F' and another term for defecation. It was 100 minutes of unremitting bad taste. His role models were obviously Rip Taylor, Gary Mule Deer, Harry Basil and others who had a bag of gag items. He is currently the most successful but easily the least funny of the lot by any measurement."

Delaney denounced the vulgarity and the base humor that pervaded the performance he reviewed.

Carrot Top's sophomoric wit is still there, but perhaps there was a generational gap between Joe and I.

I laughed through the entire show I attended over the weekend at the MGM Grand's Hollywood Theatre. The entertainment actually began an hour before the proverbial curtain went up.

A series of videos, running while the guests were escorted to their seats, prepared the fans for the bizarro world of The Carrot.

The footage included episodes of daring young skateboarders defying death and broken bones by leaping cars, sliding down hand rails and tumbling down steps.

There were snowboarders sailing down the sides of mountains, snowmobilers doing cartwheels through the air, waterskiers, dirt-bike riders and a host of other extreme sport enthusiasts.

One clip was of a rabbit trying to have sex with a cat, and a dog; a bull sexually attacking a farmer; and other odd situations.

Another consisted of a series of shots of babies spitting up.

The videos were extreme, reflecting the type of humor practiced by Carrot Top (whose real name is Scott Thompson and who might be more widely known as a pitchman for AT&T than as a prop comic). He pushes the edge of the envelope, and at times may have gone over the edge, as when he constantly grabbed his crotch, a la Michael Jackson.

Carrot Top's opening act was stand-up comic Charlie Viracola, wearing a wool cab pulled over the top of his ears, earrings, a swatch of a goatee on his chin, loose fitting baggy denims and a sweat shirt.

Viracola's humor consisted of a lot of one-liners, many of them focusing on social issues, politics and human foibles.

He often referred to life on his fictional Planet Charlie:

"On Planet Charlie, postal workers and DMV workers will be paid by the actual number of people they help in a day."

Or ...

"On Planet Charlie, if you have a child that misbehaves in public and you refuse to discipline him, we can discipline him."

With the fans properly warmed up, Carrot Top launched into a performance that relentlessly pursued laughs.

The setting consisted of 10 trunks placed strategically on the stage. Throughout the evening he jumped from trunk to trunk pulling out the sight gags that punctuated his comedy.

At breakneck speed he managed to cram what seemed like hundreds of jokes and dozens of props into his performance.

"Southwest Airline," he said. "What a piece of (expletive) that is. It's like a Greyhound bus with wings."

"Virgin Airline? Not me. I want an airline that's been there and back a couple of times."

He pulled out a magazine to read while watching for terrorists (it had a window in it).

There was a cookbook for women who couldn't cook -- the recipes were replaced with yellow pages listing restaurants.

Carrot Top designed a picnic plate that avoids flies -- attached to it is a second plate with dog droppings on it, so the flies will go there instead of to the food.

And there was the plate for bulemics -- a plate attached to a small toilet.

He used a series of microphone props -- a bong mike for Whitney Houston; a mike for Tom Jones with a net attached to catch panties tossed to him.

He also had a trunk for his redneck jokes -- wind chimes made of crescent wrenches; a fishing pole with a can of beer tied to the line for police to lure out rednecks who are holed up in their trailers; an oil can embossed with a picture of a missing redneck child.

Delaney was right. Many of Carrot Top's gags are in poor taste, but in this age of rabid political correctness it's nice to see someone willing to stick out their neck for a worthwhile cause -- such as a good laugh.

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