Carrot Top

Why would people buy a ticket for a comedian they don’t respect? Dunno, but you hear it a lot: "I didn’t expect to like him as much as I did."

The comedian, known offstage as Scott Thompson, probably won’t argue the point. What did he have to say for himself at the end of a recent ceremony to celebrate Luxor officials extending his contract to 2015?

He used the moment to pass along the ringing endorsement of a lady who told him, "That might be the best show I ever went to that I didn’t want to go to."

There’s only one thing wrong with all this. Carrot Top is actually the perfect Las Vegas act. Who else gives you not one joke, but two, based on those impossibly tall booze glasses down on Fremont Street?

He’s a celebrity, sort of, immediately recognizable for the mess of curly hair and weird eyebrows that don’t go with the ultra-pumped physique. But he’s a middle-priced star. Accessible.

He’s redneck friendly, but doesn’t pander like Larry the Cable Guy. In fact, a NASCAR joke — about how funny it would be to see a Crest Whitestrips car — sort of bombs: "NASCAR fans don’t have teeth!" he yells in frustrated explanation.

His ultra-slacker demeanor is of equal appeal to stoners, burnouts, meatheads, frat boys and mooks. The T-shirt and poop jokes are a constant reminder that even though he’s 44, he came up through the comedy ranks on the Florida party bar and college circuit.

But really, it’s the props. Each weekend brings comedians to the Strip, more famous and funnier. But the eight big trunks on the stage of the Atrium Showroom — packed with so much stuff some of it doesn’t even seem to get used — somehow makes this seem like a real Vegas show, instead of someone standing in front of a curtain that hides another show’s set.

And isn’t it better to be the best prop comic than to be just another stand-up who is pretty good? Carrot Top more or less proves this himself after a half-hour, when he gives the trunks a rest.

Until then, it’s gangbusters, a flurry of demented sight gags. Shoes that look like feet so you can "run right through security" at the airport. A Michael Phelps cereal box with smoke puffing out of the top ("That was hard to make, you bastards!"). An orange traffic cone that pops out of your chest when you pass out drunk.

The momentum slows when he starts in on the regular jokes, hovering around the "P" of his Carrot Top logo stage floor, making eye contact with only the first couple of rows of the steeply tiered theater.

But even when they lack props, a lot of the jokes are illustrated by computer animations on an overhead screen. Or sound snippets, such as clips of all the country songs that remind fans of the need to "breathe."

And he’s always self-deprecating: "These are not all gems. Some of this is filler," he announces.

Indeed, and a full 90 minutes of Carrot Top (not counting a 10-minute opening act from another comedian) may be more than necessary for patrons who weren’t expecting much anyway.

But you can’t help but give it up for the effort, whether it’s — just for one Hasselhoff joke — a radio-control Knight Rider car with a beer on top, or the closing rock-star medley of very silly quick-changes.

"They’re all dumb jokes. Welcome to Carrot Top!" he says at one point. Just don’t go in expecting anything else — like, for him to be great — and you will not only be fine, but carrying on a fine tradition.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.