Mark Curry’s strong finish doesn’t leave Hilton audience hangin’

Some people are just funny; you know them at work or school. A few even end up as professional comedians.

Mark Curry is one of those guys, but somehow it seems to surprise people: "The 'Hangin' With Mr. Cooper' guy? He's still around?"

But Curry is not the kind of funny where you will see his jokes quoted. Not one of those stand-ups who is driven by some kind of unique insight into the world, then works on getting enough polish to deliver it.

No, Curry is an in-the-moment comedian, one who quickly pulls you onboard with charisma, energy, body language and-- yes, sitcom stars have them, too -- acting skills that carry the routines as much as their verbal content. And he's urban without lapsing into the "Black people do this, white people do this" thing.

Curry makes friends quickly. When the show is over, they crowd outside the Shimmer Cabaret at the Las Vegas Hilton, circling the 50-year-old with cameras and DVDs to sign. This "Icons of Comedy" series may overbill itself, but you can see why Curry has become the anchor of a solid plan to fill the gap between anonymous club comics and the big-ticket stars.

Curry got this night rolling with crowd work, proving he can wing it without memorized jokes. Within seconds, he dubbed a set of front-row women "the Cheetah Ladies," and soon after holding up a handbag for all to see -- "That cheetah's got pigmentation problems" -- made them the running joke of the set.

"It looks like I'm in a slave movie," he said, improvising a whole "Roots"-style Cicely Tyson monologue.

Curry's good will sustained the early planned material, standard topics of airlines, women always knowing that men cheat, women not paying for anything, butts ("It's not what the booty looks like, it's the way you work that booty," he says, demonstrating) and Victoria's Secret ("Don't send me there. I don't send you to Home Depot").

The memorable part came as the bulk of the hour settled into a long comparison between older and younger women. It just became more detailed and real the longer it went on, as Curry's set-up line about preferring older women narrowed from the generic to the ultra-specific.

Older women are the ones you can call at 4:30 a.m. "What'chu doin'?"

"Waitin' on you. What'chu doin?" (He does the cartoon character head shake.)

Young women make you stop on the way to bring them fast food. Yes, they have the bodies, but said bodies will be encased in sweat pants upon your arrival. And if there are two ice cubes left in the tray, she'll fish one back from your drink.

Older women will greet you in a house with real furniture, where the thermostat goes up as the lights get dimmer. And as Curry gets more specific about this house in which he is plied with glass after glass of red wine, you feel like you are there with him.

Should you get to spend the night, young women will wake up mean with a hangover at 2:30 p.m., and somehow you are to blame. Older women will wake you to the smell of bacon and biscuits, and the sound of singing from the kitchen.

Curry brought it all to the finish line by finding a real young woman in the audience and asking what's in her freezer. Frozen pizza and Easter candy, it turned out.

Then he asked the same of a Cheetah Lady. "First of all, how many freezers do you have?" When she said "Two," the crowd was already going crazy. "What's in there?" When the first answer is "ox tails," the laughter drowned out the rest of the list.

At one point Curry asks if he's gone too far, and mimics a patron: "We shoulda went to the George Wallace show." But Curry's closing stretch is very much a Wallace "man of the people" move: inviting anyone celebrating anything to come up and be simultaneously toasted and roasted.

And, like Wallace, Curry has both the everyman rapport and the staying power to be at home on the Strip as long as he wants to be.

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