Hyperactive performer’s life on stage is a snap

By Jerry Fink

Friday, Oct. 12, 2007 | 7:25 a.m.

Who: Ventriloquist/impressionist Terry Fator with special guest Bobby Badfingers

When: 7 p.m. Sunday and Monday; Dec. 3

Where: Las Vegas Hilton Theater

Tickets: $39.95-$99; 732-5755

He's a snappy dresser, makes snappy retorts and snaps to attention.

Hyperactive comic Bobby Badfingers (Bob Von Merta) lives in an obsessive, snap-related world , snapping out puns at an incredible rate - almost as fast as he snaps his fingers.

Snapdragons, snapping turtles, Snap-on tools, red snappers, snap peas.

He does a bit in his act about what the world would be like without snap - pants would fall down, bras wouldn't be fastened, no one could snap his fingers. No Snap-on tools or ginger snaps.

He's at the Las Vegas Hilton Sunday and Monday, opening for ventriloquist/impressionist/singer Terry Fator, winner of NBC's 2007 "America's Got Talent" competition .

The shows have sold out, prompting the Hilton to bring the Fator/Badfingers duo back on Dec. 3.

"I do a lot of crazy, crazy stuff - I sing and snap and dance and tell jokes," says the muscular specialty act from Huntington Beach, Calif., who talks fast and is physically restless. "I was born with ADHCSSD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Can't Stop Snapping Disorder."

In fact, the 46-year-old Badfingers, who grew up in San Francisco, said he had ADHD as a child, and still may have it to some extent.

"I couldn't sit still," he said, his conversation jumping from subject to subject, but always accentuated with finger snapping and snapping puns. "When I was a young guy I was in and out of trouble, in and out of school. I had ADHD, really. I think age has slowed me down a little, but not too much."

His grandfather, who died in 1990 at 96, taught him the importance of being physically fit, a lesson he took to heart.

All the while, he was a finger snapper. Always snapping, rapidly, to the sounds of the music around him.

After high school Badfingers taught martial arts.

"It kept me busy," he said. "I'm not a scholar of any sort."

After opening a motor-home dealership in San Jose, Calif., he learned he could make money with a snap.

He was sitting in a bar at the time, snapping to the beat of the band that was playing.

"One of the guys in the band invited me to come onstage to snap, but I was shy so I didn't go," Badfingers said. "I came back to the bar a few weeks later, and he remembered me and invited me back up onstage again. This time I had a couple of shots of tequila in me so up I went and I did 'Wipe Out,' the drum solo part. The place went wild."

That was in 1986. Two months later he landed his first TV gig - with no one less than David Letterman, thanks to a neighbor who had connections with the late-night TV host.

"I haven't been back since," Badfingers said. "I think it's about time he had me on again."

Another friend hooked him up with Jan Berry and Dean Torrence, the surfing duo who made it big in the early 1960s and continued to tour after Berry partly recovered from a debilitating car wreck, until his death in 2004.

Badfingers first appeared with them at a casino in Wendover. After the show he was mobbed.

"All these people rushed the stage," he said. "People were grabbing my leg. It was cool."

He toured with Jan & Dean for a couple of years, beginning in 1999, selling his motor-home dealership to become a full-time snapper.

He's been on Howard Stern's radio show, "Live With Regis & Kathie Lee" and many others.

His resume includes trade shows, casinos, conventions and commercials. He opened for Elvis tribute artist Trent Carlini at the Las Vegas Hilton. He's hoping to sell a children's TV show, a cartoon. He's working on a doll that makes a snapping sound when you squeeze it.

"I'm leaving for Shanghai in a couple of days for a big Ferrari event," Badfingers said. "I go there for one day and then come back to Las Vegas to get ready for the show at the Las Vegas Hilton. Then I go to Hong Kong for a week to open a huge shopping mall."

Many entertainers struggle for years to make it in show business.

For Badfingers, it's been a snap.