Favorito plays no favorites

Monday, Feb. 20, 2006 | 12:32 p.m.

Insult comic Vinnie Favorito may have struck out in "Benny's Bullpen," but he's hitting home runs at O'Sheas.

Actually it isn't Favorito's fault that his show at Binion's ended up closing.

In 2004 Harrah's bought the downtown venue, a move to acquire the World Series of Poker from the Binion organization, and then sold the property to West Virginia-based MTR Gaming Group.

Under the agreement, Harrah's would manage the property for a year.

One of Harrah's bold moves was to make a 400-seat showroom out of the space where the World Series of Poker used to be held - dubbed "Benny's Bullpen" for the late founder Benny Binion.

In its more than 50-year history, Binion's had never engaged a headliner.

Favorito, compared to Don Rickles, only more vicious, was the first.

Initially, he said he did well, bringing in more than 200 fans a night.

But when Harrah's pulled out of downtown, Favorito says his numbers drastically dropped.

And so in December he moved to O'Sheas, another Harrah's-owned property.

He should do well in the 170-seat theater. It is an intimate room, which is the kind of venue that serves him best - allowing him to interact with fans in a way that can be devastatingly funny.

When you leave a Favorito performance your jaws ache from laughter. Your side hurts. You feel drained.

That's how I felt when I left the theater recently, and it wasn't even his best night.

Favorito pulls no punches - he insults every race, every nationality, every sex. Anything that can be insulted, he will find the soft spot and drill into it like a maniacal dentist.

"Are there any Mexicans here?" he says.

From there, the humor spins out of control.

He scans the room like a big game hunter, zeroing in on targets throughout the audience.

"What are you?" he says to a couple in the front row. "Native Americans? No (expletive deleted). Well, you're (expletive deleted) Mexicans now. What's your name? Cliff? It's not like, 'Falling-Off-the-Cliff?' "

He takes on a firefighter, an engineer, a salesman for the telephone book's advertising pages and a dozen other fans who laugh as hard at the humor derived at their own expense as those sitting around them, tears rolling down their cheeks.

This is a show for adults who can leave their political correctness at home. Check your uptight attitudes at the door of this small, second-floor showroom, and you will have a memorable evening.