Friday, Sept. 10, 2004 | 9:17 a.m.
Earlier this year Harris Peet quit smoking, though following his cold-turkey approach isn't advisable for anyone.
In February the comedian was involved in a serious motorcycle accident.
"While sliding along the Ventura Freeway," he said in a recent call from his Los Angeles home, "a voice told me I would no longer smoke, and I haven't." Peet spent a week in the hospital nursing five broken ribs, "a lung full of blood and a bruised liver. But other than that, I was OK."
It's all the more ironic that Peet -- who performs Monday through Sept. 19 at the Riviera Comedy Club -- has long joked in his act about his attempts to kick his nicotine habit: "I'm trying to quit smoking. I was gonna buy the patch but they cost too much money, so I've just been duct-taping a bunch of wet cigarettes to my (rear end)."
Peet, who studied theater in college, moved from New York to L.A. in 1976. He "wound up at The Comedy Store," where he's performed some nights and worked most others ("I run the room, seat all the people, that kind of stuff") for the past 27 years.
In the early days he watched as some up-and-coming comedy greats -- Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Jay Leno and David Letterman among them -- paid their dues on the famed club's stage. "These people provided a standard for you to shoot for," he says.
Helping oversee operations at the Comedy Store has afforded 50-year-old Peet "great freedom" in his schedule to perform stand-up elsewhere. "I used to do these tours where I'd book three months' worth" of gigs, he says. "I'd go on my motorcycle and I'd go to the East Coast, work all up and down the East Coast on my bike and then come home." In recent years he's since curtailed his performances, playing only occasional shows, usually in La Jolla, Calif., and Las Vegas.
"Stand-up is real fun when you're doing it, but after you do it or before you do it, it's not any fun," he says, explaining how he failed to reach "the next level" in comedy: "where you go someplace and they put your name in the paper and people come because they know who you are, they know they like what you do. That makes a big difference."
Still, you won't catch Peet lamenting the career that might have been -- probably because he's had a couple of others on which to fall back.
Since the late '70s he has worked with the Los Angeles Kings hockey team in several capacities -- a job he landed, interestingly enough, through his work at the Comedy Store. One night he recognized player Murray Wilson and some friends being turned away from a sold-out show at the club. Peet intervened and got the party some seats and complimentary drinks.
"Hockey players didn't make all that much money back then," he says, explaining how Wilson later told his teammates about " 'a guy at the Comedy Store who likes hockey; he'll get you in for free and give you free drinks.' "
Before long, Peet was beating off with a stick players who would show up at the club. "Then I kind of got friendly with them, and I'd go watch them practice."
A longtime hockey fan who played the sport in college, Peet says he noticed during those practice sessions that when the team traveled to out-of-town games, injured players were typically left behind to skate solo, shooting pucks at a board as opposed to a goalie in the net.
"I thought, 'Well, I might not be the best, but I'm better than a board with four holes in it.' So I said, 'Let me skate with you,' and they said, 'Fine.' " For 20 years he served as the Kings' practice goalie before retiring his pads, gloves and mask about four years ago. "I just got a bit old for that," he says.
Peet also spent time over the years working in the team's locker room, and now wears the badge of the equipment assistant. On game days, he transports necessary gear between the Kings' practice facility in El Segundo to the Staples Center in L.A., and back again. "Even though it's a home game, it's like a road trip," he explains of the workload.
He claims to have struck up friendships with several Kings players (though most have since retired), including Dean Kennedy, whose Canadian cattle ranch Peet says he's visited. He also counts the legendary Wayne Gretzky among his buddies. Following practices, "The Great One" would retreat to the locker room before his teammates to find Peet playing along with the TV game-show "Jeopardy!"
"He'd sit in his stall and he'd have a Diet Pepsi," the comedian recalls. "He'd watch me just blurt out all the 'Jeopardy!' answers, because I know all the answers."
Gretsky once questioned Peet's trivia prowess -- unaware that his pal had once been a contestant on the game show in 1989 and finished in second place.
"I said ... 'If you watched the show a lot, I'm sure you'd know all the answers,' " Peet recalls. "He looked at me and said, 'Harris, I don't even know the answer when the answer is me.' "
In the early '90s, Peet juggled his duties at The Comedy Store and with the Kings while providing the voices for several characters -- including Muddy Mudskipper, George Liqour and Albert, a foul-mouthed bass -- on "The Ren & Stimpy Show" cartoon series.
"I had some days where I would get up in the morning and I'd go skate with the Kings. I'd leave there, go do voices for 'Ren & Stimpy,' come home, and that night go on at the Comedy Store," Peet recalls. "I realized that there are people who would say that they would give their right arm to do one of those things, and here I am doing three of them in one day ... Life has been a big picnic."
Out for laughs
Margaret Cho's "State of Emergency" tour pulls into UNLV's Artemus Ham Hall at 8 p.m. on Sept. 24. Tickets are $31.90 and $48.95 plus tax; call 739-FANS.
Las Vegas Comedy Festival updates: Legendary funnyman Sid Ceasar will receive a new award bearing his name. The Caesar has been established in honor of his lifetime work in comedy, and an oversized statue will be presented to its namesake during an awards banquet at the festival, which runs Oct. 13 through Oct. 17 at Golden Nugget. Another comedian (his/her identity is still under wraps) will also receive the Caesar this year. The award will be given to deserving comics during future festivals.
Also on tap: Comedian Tom Dreesen is slated to teach a seminar titled "The Joy of Stand-Up"; and actors Daniel Baldwin and Timothy Busfield are among the celebs expected to play in a star-studded poker tournament, the proceeds from which will benefit a medical fund for comedians established by festival organizers. Visit www.lasvegascomedyfestival.com for more info.
On-line comedy 'zine Two Drink Minimum (www.twodrinkmin.com) reports in its September issue that former talk-show hostess Caroline Rhea -- profiled in this space last November -- has signed on to host "The Bigger Loser," an NBC reality series in which contestants attempt to lose weight.
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