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Show What's the punch ' line? Cartoons is coming! ( J - vr ' . W y Illiilllllilil telKM;!.-?'-'': II II " Vmi fcSTli iiiTiiiii ji"T 'in' M I " ' ' - o .:- v . 1". ; vv ' by RICK BROUGH Record staff writer Stand-up comedy can tackle any topic from raunchy jokes to gags about Jake Gam and Phil Riesen to speculation on how Columbus may have discovered the idea of water-skiing. water-skiing. Park City will be seeing a lot more comedy, judging from the announcement last weekend that Cartoons, the all-comedy nightclub in Salt Lake, will be opening a branch on Main Street. A sneak preview was given Saturday as comics worked the stage at the YarrowHoliday Inn and presented a free show at the Egyptian Theatre during the Art Festival. Comic Allen Prophet, the headliner at the Holiday Inn, was outfitted with a genial smirk and what looked like a jogging suit. Like most comics, his topics rambled all over the room. He talked about ritzy Beverly Hills, where you have to make reservations to get gas, and discussed how Mondale and Ferraro were doomed by their appearance ("They looked like two divorcees on a blind date"). His running gag, though, was to switch to Polack jokes or dirty one-liners one-liners whenever he received tepid laughter on more sophisticated material. This is the kind of material you want, he suggested. The result was that, at 9:30 on a Saturday night, Prophet was doing 11:30 material. His routine is more suited for a nightclub crowd that's slightly drunk and has been settled in its seats for a while. By the way, I should explain I have to quote his act from memory. In the middle of Prophet's routine, he looked down at my table at stageside and asked for my notes, apparently fearful I was stealing his jokes to pass on to another comic. He was apologetic later when I identified myself. But in the cutthroat show-business circuit where he works, he said, the jokes that are his livelihood can easily wind up in somebody else's act. The featured comic, Todd Collard, dealt with concept humor in the vein of Gallagher and George Carlin. Here's an idea, he said why not get drunk when you have your driver's license photo taken. Then when a cop pulls you over for drunk driving and looks at your license, you'll look normal. "He was sober, but God, was he ugly! " the cop will report. Or wouldn't it be neat to have "cartoon capability"-the ability to make your body react in crazy ways. You could even survive a safe dropping on your head ! Collard is a lanky, likable figure. (In fact, most of the male comics I saw this weekend seem to be skinny, for some reason! ) And he knows the kinds of things the Baby Boomers have grown up with such as the complete lyrics to "The Flintstones" or the way families talk to each other. If a parent threatens you, he said, the perfect answer when you're a teenager is simply to sneer "So what?" The female comic of the evening was Jannine Gardner, who does material that is somewhat raunchy, but she took the sting out by doing it with the accent of an air-headed Jewish debutante. Her voice is somewhat like Gilda Radner's character Rhonda Weiss. In fact, Radner is evoked specifically when Gardner does a Utah character named Hosanna Hosannadanna. The routine involves her commenting on the gross personal habits of such local folk as Phil Riesen, Dick Nourse and Patti Sherman. A lot of her material is local and veteran Salt Lakers can truly appreciate her joke that she's "old enough to remember when Mark Vrontikis had hair." The M.C. and opening comic for the evening was Lane Fox, who does jokes about the Mormon culture. If he gets rid of the hostile tone, he'll go over well with such lines as "If God is a black woman, this state is ing vapor!" noDin Moencn Todd on his teen years: "You're gonna ground me, Mom? So what?" Jeff Jensen Todd Collard seriously explains his funny view of life. |