Friday, Sept. 12, 2003 | 8:34 a.m.
Lisa Ferguson's Laugh Lines column appears Fridays. Her Sun Lite Column appears Mondays. Reach her at [email protected].
Don't count on Peter Berman to go for broke on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" or tackle mind-bending questions during rounds of "Jeopardy!"
Though he's appeared as a contestant on several TV game shows, the stand-up comic is the first to recognize, for the most part, he's been nothing but a big loser.
"They have not been my thing," concedes Berman, who headlines through Saturday at Palace Station's Laugh Trax.
His televised failures began during his college days at the University of Michigan, when the native Bostonian settled into one of the roomy recliners reserved for contestants on "Remote Control," MTV's '80s-era, kitsch-laden, TV-trivia game show.
Berman lost the contest, but still walked away with a prize of sorts: photos of himself posing on set with a giant PEZ candy dispenser, whose head was a likeness of longtime game-show host Bob Eubanks.
Next, in 1989, Berman competed in the comedy category on the original, Ed McMahon-hosted "Star Search" talent show -- and lost. His luck seemed to change, however, in the mid-'90s when he became a last-minute contestant on a revival of the late-'70s game show "Make Me Laugh."
Unlike the show's previous premise -- where stand-up comics tried to get contestants to laugh, thus losing the competition -- the revamped "Make Me Laugh" had contestants wagering whether the comedians could make audience members and others giggle.
Berman -- whose fiancee was already a "Laugh" contestant -- was tapped by producers to sit in the hot seat when a player scheduled for a later episode went MIA. The desperate staffers didn't mind that he was a comedy pro, Berman says, or that he knew the show's other comics.
"I won that damn show," Berman boasted of his $1,500 take during a recent call from Los Angeles. "It was as much luck as anything else."
But that lucky streak came to a halt earlier this summer when he competed on CBS' latest version of "Star Search" and, well ...
"No, I didn't win," Berman says. It certainly wasn't for lack of trying: He insists his comedy set on the show "Went great ... The guy who beat me did some airplane jokes and some George-Bush-is-a-redneck jokes, and the judge told him he was very original. So, there you go: Comedy is subjective."
Good thing for Berman he only falls flat on game shows. In fact, he's scored plenty of big points during his 17-year comedy career.
Upon discovering his funny bone at college, Berman -- who majored in communications -- divided his senior year between his studies and playing Midwestern comedy clubs on weekends. He's since opened for such heavyweights as Jerry Seinfeld, Rita Rudner, Howie Mandel and Tim Allen, and has been taking Las Vegas comedy-club stages for the better part of a dozen years.
Night owls may remember Berman from his brief stint as host of NBC's late-night "Friday Night Videos" series. For seven months he wrote and hosted "Morning Sickness," a nationally syndicated radio show that aired on the Comedy World Radio Network until the network permanently signed off a couple of years ago. (Some of Berman's comedy bits from "Morning Sickness" were also featured on "The Howard Stern Show.")
"I really just like being involved in being creative and having it be funny," Berman explains of his comedic drive. "That's what I get off on in stand-up comedy is the immediate results, and that's what I get off on in radio." These days, the married father of two young sons is beaming over recent talks he's had with TV execs about developing a sitcom in which he would star. He remains tight-lipped, however, about the proposed series' specifics.
"The sitcom is a whole new, deeper level of really trying to expose my life and the comedy in there," 36-year-old Berman says. If nothing else, he's learning a lot about himself in the process.
"It's pretty wild because, as a rule, don't most of us just go along and kind of deny our weird attributes, or our fears, or our insecurities? ... But when you're gonna write about yourself in a sitcom, that's probably where the really funny things are."
Berman is also excited about hitting the road later this month as part of The Ha Brothers. He and comics Nick Gaza and Todd Sawyer (who opens for Berman this weekend at Laugh Trax) will play a series of gigs at small-hotel ballrooms in such cities as St. Paul, Minn., Tampa, Fla., and Dayton, Ohio, before wrapping up the tour in Salina, Kan., on Nov. 21.
The shows will do more than provide laughs in the towns: The Ha Brothers have teamed with local charities, to which they will donate some proceeds from each performance.
"I'm not trying to be corny, but sending a kid to burn camp or helping to pay for a bullet-proof vest by us doing a comedy show, it's appealing to us," Berman says.
Financially, benefit shows are "a lot riskier than us just going to do comedy clubs and getting booked into places," he explains, "because we're not guaranteed that we're gonna sell 500 seats. But we're willing to take the risk because ... it's gonna be great to be able to give back to the community."
It's not a year's supply of Turtle Wax or Rice-A-Roni, but for a game-show veteran like Berman, that's one heck of a consolation prize.
Out for laughs
Emmy Award-winning comic Rich Hall, who penned a series of books about "Sniglets" -- defined as "any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should" -- headlines through Sunday at Riviera Comedy Club.
Also through Sunday, Vegas frequenter Todd Glass plays The Improv at Harrah's. The comic, who guest-starred in the sitcom "Married With Children," "Home Improvement" and "Friends," returns to town Oct. 13 through Oct. 19 to take the stage at Catch a Rising Star at Excalibur.
Steve Lazarus knows the joy a good Major League Baseball stadium hot dog can bring: He sold the delicacies to fans in the stands at Yankee Stadium before sliding into his comedy career. Catch him Monday through Sept. 21 at Riviera Comedy Club.
Beginning Oct. 11, a second show will be added to the "Funny Bone Comedy Showcase" at Golden Nugget. The once-weekly show (9 p.m. Fridays) features different comedians each week, and will expand to include a 9 p.m.-Saturday performance. Tickets are $25.
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