Though fame has yet to find them, these comics have something to tell you

Ladies and gentlemen, you've seen them on "The Tonight Show," on Letterman and in the movies. ¶ But you can't quite put names to the faces. ¶ They're the guys who haven't yet turned the corner to fame. But that doesn't make them any less hysterical. And their shows are way cheaper than Ray Romano's.

By Corey Levitan/Las Vegas Review-Journal

If you haven't seen McKim at Brad Garrett's Club at the Tropicana or the Shimmer Lounge at the Las Vegas Hilton, you're missing some bizarre takes on everyday minutiae such as the restroom signs that require employees to wash their hands: "I'll be damned if I wait until an employee walks in and washes my hands."

McKim, 53, is a Philly native who tried Los Angeles for five years before landing here.

"There's no ideal market to start in," he says. "You almost always have to leave and come back to get respect."

McKim has been married to another comedian since 1984. (Traci Skene started performing comedy a year later.) While he made the semifinals in last year's final season of "Last Comic Standing," she didn't. And featuring him in this article and not her may be the last straw in their union.

McKim laughs the notion off.

"No," he says. "We never take our successes and failures personally."

Adds Skene: "That means I don't have to put makeup on for a photo shoot, so I'm actually happy."

Sherwood knows the comedy spotlight well. He held it for other comedians before gathering the courage to enter it himself six years ago.

"I sat and watched Drew Carey, Ray Romano, Kevin James, Tim Allen," says the former lighting tech at Rodney's Place (later the Comedy Stop, the Bobby Slayton Room and now Brad Garrett's Comedy Club) at the Tropicana.

"Timing was always easy for me because I could always make people laugh," says Sherwood, who opens for Carrot Top at Luxor and appears in Geechy Guy's "The Dirty Jokes Show" at Hooters.

"But what I really learned from watching all those great comedians was where to put the joke in the premise to make the joke funny."

Sherwood, 54, jokes a lot about personal trauma -- such as his son's DUI arrest for hitting the side of a house in 2004.

"People can sense when it's real," Sherwood says, adding: "and no one can steal it."

Shock's journey to the comedy stage may be the strangest of all time. It meanders from studying for the priesthood through larceny, maximum-security prison and corporate speaking.

"All true," says Shock, 68, who was raised all over the South.

After ditching the monastery and his mother's designs for his life, Shock became what he calls a "very, very successful burglar until one night I wasn't."

Shock's first experience with jewelry store motion-detector alarms, in 1962, led directly to his first experience with Louisiana chain gangs. (Still, Shock calls the monastery "much worse.")

After a three-year working vacation, Shock was hired by several Fortune 500 companies.

"I had a unique talent to motivate large numbers of salespeople," he says, adding that these companies "would promote the devil if it made them money."

At age 40, Shock tired of having to lie on their behalfs. He went to college, took theater, and -- upon the advice of actor Hayden Rorke from "I Dream of Jeannie" -- enrolled in a comedy workshop.

"Dr. Bellows prescribed comedy," he says. "And it was like a light shone on me and said, 'This is what you're supposed to do.' "

Shock was poised to break huge after a 1993 Showtime special. For some reason, however, he still qualifies for this article.

"I didn't get rich and famous," he says, "but I do what I love."

Shock does it for 25 weeks each year on the road; for six to 10 weeks, in Las Vegas. (His next hometown appearance is at the L.A. Comedy Club at the Four Queens on July 12.)

"The rest of the time, you can find me at the no-limit tables," he says.

Markman may be the only comic to successfully use stand-up as a prescription for debilitating panic attacks.

"When I get really nervous about something, I get really nauseous," he says.

Markman, 36, tried books, drugs and hypnotism to no avail.

"So I figured throwing myself in front of a crowd and trying to talk to people would be the best way," he says.

It's something he always fantasized about while growing up in San Ramon, Calif., before his dad moved the family to Vegas in 1992.

"So one day, I got the nerve up, did some dry heaving all day, went down there and loved it," he says.

Of course, appearing regularly at the L.A. Comedy Club at the Four Queens doesn't pay the bills. So he has a day job -- dispensing actual prescriptions as a pharmacy tech in a grocery store. (Initially, Markman trained to be a firefighter in Boulder City. But vomit was not the response to a fire that his instructors were hoping for.)

At his pharmacy station, Markman says he discovers gold mines of material when he doesn't want to hang himself.

"Like the old guy getting a prescription for Viagra who wants an easy-opening lid," he says.

It has been more of a slow boil for Guy (the former Michael Cathers) since he actually beat Ray Romano on a 1991 episode of TV's "Star Search."

But Guy, 47, is still simmering regularly at the Rio's Crown Comedy Club and in Hooters' "The Dirty Jokes Show," which he wrote.

Guy tells joke grenades. (You get them eight seconds after he throws them out.) One of his best: "I'm having hallucinations, but I'm getting better because I'm starting to see a psychiatrist."

The Michigan native had planned to be a juggler, but the ceilings were too low in the first wave of comedy clubs for proper application of his craft.

"So I just took the 10 minutes of jokes I already had and expanded on that," Guy says.

Romano may have his syndication money and Mirage gigs, but Guy still is tops in the Guinness World Records for most jokes told in an hour (676), a record he broke at the Las Vegas Improv in 1993.

"Even with the 'Tonight Show,' which is the greatest honor, hundreds of comics have been on that," Guy says. "There's only one world-record joke-teller."