Pauly teams with porn stars for Showtime special at the Palms

Well, this was as inevitable as sticking a banana in a peanut butter jar: Pauly Shore is coming to Vegas on Sunday to film a TV special with female porn stars.

Shore is known for dating porn stars, sexing groupies and engaging in other lascivious activities that make being famous worth losing privacy and poverty.

His new TV gig is called "Pauly Shore's Vegas Is My Oyster Variety Show." It will take place inside The Pearl at the Palms, one night after The Pearl hosts the Adult Video News Awards.

"Oyster" co-stars porn star Bree Olson and Playboy Radio's Andrea Lowell. Also performing will be Semi Precious Weapons, Dave Navarro, Michelle "Bombshell" McGee (who broke up Sandra Bullock's marriage), MTV's Amber Lancaster, Andy Dick, actress Charlyne Yi, actor Faizon Love, Tom Green, Bobby Lee and house band Electrolightz.

Yet the most intriguing co-billing is: "a never-before seen, R-rated Carrot Top."

Carrot Top was hesitant to do the naughty Vegas show, Shore says, since he performs on Jay Leno's family-friendly late-night show.

Shore recounts Top's resistance: "He was like, 'What the (expletive) am I gonna do on this show with all these girls?' "

But Shore went backstage and saw Top's racier props.

"He's got stuff about Ron Jeremy. He's got stuff on the porno thing," Shore says. "Then we started riffing. And (Top) goes, 'Oh my God, I've got an X-rated box I've never used!' "

Shore insists Carrot Top has "tons of R-rated material he can do."

"He can say (expletive) and (expletive), and all these things he can do that no one's seem him do," Shore says.

"He's excited. And I'm excited that he's excited," Shore says.

Last year, Pauly had a Showtime stand-up special. But he didn't want to do just another compilation of comics.

"If I do something, I want to do it big, and I want to do it in Vegas. And I want it to be rock 'n' roll, and girls, and in your face, and an I-don't-know-what's-going-to-happen feel."

Shore says he's an eager beaver to be here for the AVNs. But Shore doesn't watch porn so much anymore. Why not?

"I don't know. I'd rather watch CNN, I guess. That's a great end quote," he tells me.

But then he steps on the end quote:

"I'm obsessed with Anderson Cooper. Did you see my Anderson Cooper 'Funny or Die' video?' "

The cycles of shore

Was it a million years ago, or was it yesterday? Shore's first big movie was "Encino Man" (1992), then "Son in Law" (1993), "In The Army Now" (1994), "Jury Duty" (1995) and "Bio-Dome" (1996).

What happened, obviously, is that Adam Sandler stole Pauly Shore's career, first with "Billy Madison" (1995), then with "Happy Gilmore" (1996) and "The Wedding Singer" (1998).

To be fair, there are some differences between Pauly and Sandler films. Anyhow, I didn't talk with Shore about Sandler.

But Pauly, 42, is keenly aware of the phases of his life arc.

A little over a decade ago, he says, it seemed it just wasn't cool for people "to like Pauly right now."

Then in 2003 came the second part of his career, when he released 2003's "Pauly Shore Is Dead."

With that movie, he took more responsibility for the quality of his content, "as opposed to showing up on a set," he says.

"Not that I don't like the stuff that I did before. But at the time (in the 1990s), 'Jury Duty' and 'Bio-Dome' were not on the tops of people's lists. Of course, now everyone says, 'I saw 'Bio-Dome, it's (expletive) funny dude, I had no idea.'

"I'm like, 'All right, whatever.' "

I told Pauly every star seems to go through that cycle -- of being loved, then rejected, then redeemed.

"Yeah, but when you're actually in the cycle, it's a lot different than 'everybody going through it,' " he says and chuckles.

Later this year, Pauly co-stars in a major motion picture titled "Born to Be a Star." It was co-written and produced by Adam Sandler.

Doug Elfman's column appears Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. E-mail him at delfman@ reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.