Holly Parker
Pauly Shore has been onstage in Las Vegas quite a bit recently.
Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Everybody knows Pauly Shore. Depending on your age, you might know him as an ever-present force on MTV, or from his comedy flicks like “Son In Law” or “Encino Man.” But you might not know how he became Pauly Shore.
“My whole career, whether I was promoting a movie or a show or this or that, I’d do a junket to promote it, and I’d always go back to what it was like growing up at the Comedy Store,” says Shore, whose parents Sammy and Mitzi Shore founded the legendary comedy club in Los Angeles in 1972. “Or it’s all about what it was like on MTV or at the Playboy Mansion. I just wanted to find a way to answer all this stuff in a funny show that is more about my childhood and growing up, before all of it.”
So he wrote a one-man show and began to tour it before COVID struck and put all his plans on hold. Then Shore relocated to Las Vegas and started building new elements for the show, adding videos and images from his unique history that really flesh out his stories. “It’s funny because some of this stuff is wild, but you’re going to see it’s really true, and there’s the photos.”
He’ll perform “Stick with the Dancing: Funny Stories From My Childhood” on January 29 at 8 p.m. at the Space, the community-based theater just off the Strip operated by local entertainer and host Mark Shunock of Vegas Golden Knights and Las Vegas Raiders fame.
“I’ve been [living] in Vegas for a year and a half and I’ve checked out a lot of venues, and Mark is a dear friend of mine,” Shore says. “I’ve known him a while, first met him when he was in ‘Rock of Ages,’ and we’ve kept in touch. He’s always telling me to stop by the Space. One night I did and thought, this place is perfect. He was kind enough to let me do it there.”
Shore has been doing steady stand-up gigs at local clubs for several months, bouncing from the Plaza to Downtown Grand to the Laugh Factory at the Tropicana. But this is the first time he’s doing this show for a Las Vegas audience, sharing the ups and downs of his life before he started frequenting that Playboy Mansion and opening for Sam Kinison.
One of the many members of his extended comedy family is the great Louie Anderson, who passed away in Las Vegas on January 21 after battling cancer. Shore was able to visit Anderson last week to say goodbye to his friend.
“That was God’s work. I was just lucky enough to get in there and fortunate that his [family] was nice enough to let me say goodbye,” Shore says. “I got to hold him and tell him I love him, and we all love him on behalf of all the comics and the Comedy Store. And he saw a face of familiarity and had that comfort, and he knew it was me and called my by my name.”
Shore has also recently performed with his band The Crustys at the Sand Dollar Lounge in Chinatown — “I’m not a singer but I attempt to sing,” he says — and has found Vegas very welcoming, whether he’s onstage or just making the rounds.
“It’s been really nice. Everyone thinks of Vegas and just thinks of the Strip, and they don’t know about Sparrow + Wolf and Esther’s Kitchen and all these cool spots,” he says. “I’m not always going to be on the road every weekend, so it’s great to be able to be an artist and tell jokes and do what I do.”
