Comedian Todd Glass, Las Vegas Sun, Nov. 26, 2004

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Glass distorted reality on ‘Last Comic Standing’ Lisa Ferguson Friday, Nov. 26, 2004 | 8:49 a.m. There's a bit of irony about Todd Glass' surname. Operating like one of those wacky fun house mirrors on this summer's second season of the NBC reality series "Last Comic Standing," Glass twisted and tweaked his personality just enough to make viewers -- and his nine fellow contestants -- see him as an irrepressible, scene-stealing cutup. Some strategically placed, tongue-in-cheek outbursts; and a boisterous serenade of a ditty called "The Attention Song" ("I need a lot of attention, that's why I wrote 'The Attention Song!' "), among other agitators, were all it took for Glass to seemingly get under the skin of his comedic cohorts, who spent several weeks residing in a Hollywood castle while competing for the show's title. Turns out, the annoying antics weren't much of a stretch for Glass, who opens for David Spade tonight and Saturday at the Mirage. "They can't edit you into something you're not," contends Glass, who also participated in the third season of "LCS," which aired this fall. "If you appear that way, that's part of you; and part of me is being on all the time." All right, he admits he hammed it up a bit extra for the cameras: "Like when I was yelling, a lot of time I was ... almost parodying what it was like to be in a reality-show house," a la MTV's "The Real World" or CBS' "Big Brother" series. The Philadelphia native is confident at least some viewers saw through the theatrics. "I was yelling, 'I need attention!' There's people that got it: 'He's doesn't really sing that song to get attention.' I have other ways I can get attention besides doing that," he explained during a recent call from his Los Angeles home. Although he was not crowned the Last Comic Standing -- Glass was ejected early during the second season, but returned as a "wild card" player before again receiving the boot; he was eliminated during the seventh episode of Season Three -- he says his newfound fans are packing comedy clubs around the nation to watch him perform. He toured this year as a solo act, and with castmate Corey Holcomb. "It's night and day now with the attendance," Glass says of the crowd counts. "Now when you go places, you have a following. It's nice. I talk to people after the show all the time and you have one common thing, and that's your sense of humor." Whether onstage or offstage, 38-year-old Glass' personality appears to be stuck in overdrive. Since venturing into stand-up as a teen, he's built an act based largely on "twisted observations," coupled with some self-effacing shtick. During shows, between puffs on a cigarette, he compares his physical resemblance to the spawn that would result if Fred Flintstone and Mel Gibson (or Treat Williams, or Oliver North -- take your pick) were to mate. "There's people that get it, and there's some people that don't," he says of his material. "I don't mean 'get it' like it's brilliant, but even to get campiness you have to be somewhat intelligent. I mean, there's people that didn't get Steve Martin ... who saw him put an arrow through his head and went, 'That's dumb.' Yeah, that is dumb -- that's the joke." On "LCS," he contends, "I was able to shine as me, and that doesn't mean everyone loved me. But my goal isn't to have everyone love me; it was to have a group of people that identified and said, 'You know what, he's silly like me.' " Comedy has also served a serious purpose for Glass, who battled dyslexia during his adolescence. "They didn't even really know what it was," he recalls. He discovered stand-up and began visiting a club in Philly, where such up-and-comers as Paul Reiser, Richard Lewis and Steven Wright would perform. At 16, Glass took the stage during an open-mike night. "I only did three minutes and I did really good the first time, and then I brought my whole family back the next week and bombed," he recalls. But a high school guidance counselor "told my parents usually kids with dyslexia, they'll excel at whatever they try," and urged his folks to encourage their son's pursuit of his craft. "It's hard to have a (comedic) voice that young, so I didn't," he explains. "You haven't experienced that much yet, and that was hard for me. It took me a lot longer than other people to find my voice, but when I did the one thing starting young helped me with was being comfortable onstage ... and eventually I became a better comic." In the years since, Glass has made the rounds on several late-night-TV talk shows; guested on a slew of sitcoms including "Friends," "Home Improvement" and "Married... With Children"; had his own stand-up special on Comedy Central; and released a CD titled "Vintage Todd Glass and Other Crap." He's taken the stage at five installments of the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal. For the past two years Glass has opened gigs for his longtime friend Spade (who co-stars on the ABC sitcom "Eight Simple Rules"). Glass makes the leap onto the big screen next year with a bit part in the Martin Lawrence flick "Rage Control"; and recently wrapped production on "Defending the Mavericks," an independent film about a small-town college football team's struggles, in which he stars. Meanwhile, he's pitching to network execs ideas for a handful of television series he's created, including a reality show called "Todd Glass Changes America," which he describes as "almost like a consumer-advocate show with a sense of humor ... In other words, I will get things done." If it gets a green light, the comic says he'll tour the country "in one of those big, rock-star buses, just going around and dealing with things that annoy me," such as receiving junk mail through his fax machine. "I always feel like, that literally is my paper" being stolen. "There is no difference than if you went into my refrigerator and took a slice of ham," he explains. With hidden cameras rolling, "We'll go to a company that sends those faxes and just take things out of their drawers and walk out of there and see how they react." That ought to garner Glass plenty of attention. Out for laughs "Latino Comedy Night," hosted by Rick Martinez, is scheduled for 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday at Boulder Station's Railhead; tickets are $25 plus tax. Also on Saturday, at Fiesta Rancho's Club Tequila, the weekly "Saturday Comedy Live" show is set for 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.; tickets are $9.99. Las Vegas residents Mike Saccone and Kathleen Dunbar -- both previously profiled in this space -- share the bill through Saturday at Palace Station's Laugh Trax. On a related note, Laugh Trax frequenter James P. Connolly left earlier this week for Iraq, where he'll entertain troops through Dec. 3 as part of the "Comics on Duty" tour. This isn't the comedian's first visit to the region: Connolly, a former Marine lieutenant, fought 13 years ago in Operation Desert Storm. Gallagher is scheduled to host the 2nd Annual Rock'n The House Showcase, set for 8 p.m. Monday at House of Blues at Mandalay Bay. Providing the aforementioned rock: The Fixx, Starship, Family Stone Experience, Mark Farner and Warrant. It was a year ago that Laugh Lines reported how comedian John Bizarre was considering throwing in the towel on his stand-up career. An aspiring independent filmmaker, he claimed to want to focus more on making movies. It appears Bizarre may have experienced a change of heart, seeing as how he's scheduled to perform Dec. 20 through Dec. 26 at Riviera Comedy Club.