Harris: Joining me on our guest line now is one of my favorite comedians, the guy who headlined the first Paul Harris Comedy Concert For Children’s Hospital, and has a brand new CD, here’s comedian Brian Regan. Hey, Brian, congratulations on the CD.
Regan: Thank you very much, Paul!
Harris: I’m not only congratulating you on the CD but also the title of the CD, Brian Regan Live. See, I like that because you could have named it something silly like Wow That Hippo is Big, or something silly where nobody would be able to find it.
Regan: I had so many different things. I jotted down about 75 to 100 different ideas for titles. Isn’t that weird that I would end up with Brian Regan Live? It’s the best of the hundred that I came up with.
Harris: But it’s fine, absolutely. It works perfectly.
Regan: What I wanted to do is avoid one of those goofy titles. They did an episode on The Simpsons one time where Homer Simpson and his friends wanted to name their bowling team something that was like a funny name. And they said “Let’s name it something that’s real funny the first time you hear it, and then sort of funny the second time, and then it’s never funny ever again.”
Harris: Exactly.
Regan: So I wanted to avoid that.
Harris: I think you have with Brian Regan Live. Ask for it by name.
Regan: Actually one thing that I almost called it…I have a tag line after the “you too” joke, when you say “you too” at the wrong time. Well, I have a tag line at the end of that bit where I say “Don’t anybody look at me, I’m a moron. Don’t anybody look at me, I feel like an idiot. Somebody throw a tarp over me.” I thought I had said that on the CD and my brother Dennis, who is also a comedian, said “Why don’t you call it Somebody Throw a Tarp Over Me?” So I thought, “That’s kind of funny.” I was thinking about using that as the title and then I listened to the bit and I hadn’t said it in the CD. Can you imagine?
Harris: Good thing you didn’t go that way then. You know, I was thinking about you this weekend. I was flipping around between football games on Sunday afternoon and ESPN or some channel was doing an Evel Knievel special.
Regan: Oh, man.
Harris: And I know how much you love Evel Knievel.
Regan: I’ve always been a huge Evel Knievel fan. One thing that I think is interesting is whenever he does the talk shows. He’s older now, he doesn’t jump so he just does the talk shows circuit, which I think is cool. Everytime he does one they want to show him the footage of him when he fell off the motorcycle and bounced around like 83 times. And they always ask him, “Hey, do you remember that day, Evel?” “No, no I don’t remember.” And they always ask him what he was thinking right before he hit the ground. What kind of question is that? “What were you thinking right before you hit the pavement, Evel?” “Oh, I remember thinking, hey, did I turn off the iron.? Then my leg cracked in half and I was thinking, hey, maybe I should get a puppy. What do you think I was thinking? I was thinking AAAAAAH!!! or something like that.”
Harris: And that’s quite a legacy Evel has left to his son Robbie Knievel. You know, he’s jumping now.
Regan: Yes, I know. You know what I heard? I heard from another comedian that Evel Knievel heard me do that joke on a TV show, and somebody said he was looking for me.
Harris: You’re kidding!
Regan: Well, I hope he realizes that I’m on his side and the joke makes fun of how stupid the questions are. And then the comic said that he tried to explain it to him but he didn’t really take it that way. He thought I was making fun of him.
Harris: I think you could take him anyway, Brian. After all, the man’s broken all his bones a million times.
Regan: Well, if he’s out there listening, I like Evel Knievel. I’m a Knievel supporter. I’m a fan of Evel Knievel. I’ve got to cover all my bases here, you understand.
Harris: Gotcha. Are you into the baseball playoffs? Are you a baseball player? Did you ever play any ball?
Regan: Did I play? Yeah, I played a little bit. I don’t know how good I was. I played out in right field. Is that any good?
Harris: I don’t think so. Are we talking Little League here?
Regan: Yeah, when I was in Little League. You’re a kid. You don’t know, you just show up. The coach asks, “You any good?” And you say, “I don’t know, my mom told me to come out here.” “Well, get out in right field.” So you run out to right field, and I never knew what was going on out there. All I knew was that the coach would yell from the dugout, “Hey guys, let’s hear some chatter out there. Let’s hear some chatter.” What are we, rabbits? [Rabbit noises] If you don’t know what chattering is, it’s saying, “Hey batter batter.” I don’t think I ever felt like more of an idiot in my whole life. I’m going “Hey batter batter, hey batter! Hey coach, is there a point to this?” What is the batter going to go, “Hey fielder fielder”? It’s ridiculous. Are you going to apply that later in life? “Hey lawyer lawyer! Hey lawyer lawyer! Sue! Hey bus driver! Drive! Shift, bus driver, shift!”
Harris: I would pay to turn on the playoffs tonight or tomorrow and see somebody doing that out on the field. You know, see Barry Bonds shouting back during the Giants game. That would be hysterical.
Regan: You know what I think is weird too, is that you’ve got the Braves in the playoffs. You know that whole controversy over the Tomahawk Chop? Do you remember a few years ago when the Braves were playing against the Blue Jays? You had all the Braves fans going “oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.” I felt bad for the Blue Jays fans going “tweet, tweet.” I don’t care if it’s 50,000 of ’em. It’s just not the same.
Harris: No. Brian, funny as always. The CD is called Brian Regan Live. Simple, direct and to the point. Ask for it by name.
Copyright 1997, Paul Harris.
Transcript by Doug Houser.