Monday By the Numbers: Carrot Top and his 8 trunks, 300 sound cues and 3.25 stars

By John Katsilometes

Monday, June 15, 2015 | 1:31 p.m.

A few weeks ago, Carrot Top met up with Martin Short backstage at Terry Fator Theater in the Mirage. Short was still sweating from his performance, during which I appeared to play him as a set of bagpipes as he wailed “Amazing Grace.” This skit has become a tradition, or at least something of a trend, in Short’s show at the Mirage.

Also massed in the hallway were Clint Holmes; his wife, Kelly Clinton-Holmes; Carrot Top’s personal assistant, Jeff Molitz; and our friend and Fifth Avenue vocal group founder Jerry Jones. I’d mentioned to Short that the last time I’d seen him onstage was not in Las Vegas but in November in Southern California when he sat for a live interview with Steve Martin at Alex Theater in Glendale.

When Short was reminded of that show, he abruptly turned to Carrot Top and said, “Oh, I heard from Steve, and he e-mailed me a story about you.” It was this terrific story by Esquire’s Chris Jones during which the writer spent six days with the man otherwise known as Scott Thompson for a piece that appeared in the magazine in February.

The takeaway: You know you’ve written something special when Steve Martin is e-mailing the link to Martin Short.

That story reminded me to return to see a Carrot Top show, as it had been far too long between visits. Now we have a new set of numbers related to the Topper, culled from last Wednesday’s show (which I attended with the esteemed Zowie Bowie), and also from a story I wrote more than six years ago for Las Vegas Weekly.

I’d always thought that was the definitive Carrot Top story until I read the one written by Jones. Amazing.

Anyhow, let’s dig into our trunk of stats. It’s all about Carrot Top this week:

19: Years Carrot Top has headlined in Las Vegas dating to his days at MGM Grand’s Hollywood Theater.

19: Years since we met, on a blurry night at the nightclub Drink & Eat Too just east of the Hard Rock Hotel on Koval Lane and Harmon Avenue. It was a Thursday night, the Boogie Nights were boogieing to great effect, and Dennis Rodman joined the Topper onstage. I seem to remember, or not, Ric Flair in the crowd that night.

9: Years he has headlined at Atrium Showroom.

2: Shows he initially performed on Saturdays at MGM Grand.

8: Trunks full of props placed onstage at Luxor.

200: Props filling those trunks.

70: Approximate number of props used in a single show.

4: Giant painted carrots flanking Atrium Showroom’s stage during his show.

25: Years Carrot Top has headlined as a prop comic across the country.

300: Sound cues in a single Carrot Top performance.

7: His age when he used his first prop, a bell he rang in the schoolyard to summon the beginning and end of recess at St. Mary’s Catholic School in Rockledge, Fla.

50: His age today.

30: Years his father, Larry, worked for NASA in the Gemini and Apollo programs (he also helped design the lunar vehicle driven on the moon’s surface and worked on the Space Shuttle program).

350: Seating capacity at Atrium Showroom.

$49.95: Base ticket price for Carrot Top performances.

$120: VIP meet-and-greet ticket prices.

240: Performances by Carrot Top each year at Luxor.

Between 65 and 90: Length of his shows, in minutes, the variance dependent upon the audience’s response.

17: Years since the release of the Carrot Top-fronted film “Chairman of the Board.”

145: His current weight.

185: His peak weight about seven years ago.

285: Times Pantera and Hellyeah founder and drummer Vinnie Paul has seen Carrot Top’s show.

3.25: Stars earned by Carrot Top in his competition against Bob Zany on “Star Search” 25 years ago.

3.75: Stars earned by Zany, who won the face-off.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.