Good comedians, the ones who last longer than a stand-up special or two, view their success like icebergs: What you see bobbing on the pop-culture surface often belies a far vaster base.
Dom Irrera sticks out more than most: He has appeared on some of the most relevant TV programs of the past 20 years and won multiple awards. But getting recognized at an airport is still a crapshoot for the distinctively down-to-earth Philadelphia native.
“It’s like being a jazz musician in the sense that I could be at Gate 10 and nobody knows me, then at Gate 11 I’m signing autographs,” Irrera said. “Nobody’s going to come out to see you because you were a guest star on ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ – unless you won an Emmy award.”
If Irrera looks familiar it’s because the stand-up king has been a pop-culture fixture for almost three decades. He’s a comic’s comic, a road juggernaut that has viewed the geography of the industry from nearly every angle.
He has conquered every late-night talk show, popped up on “Seinfeld,” “King of Queens,” “Oprah,” “The View,” “The Daily Show” and in films such as “The Big Lebowski” and “The Fourth Tenor.” He won a pair of CableACE awards and was named one of the 100 best comedians of all time by Comedy Central, a network that regularly rotates his stand-up specials.
Even though he’s doing better than ever, regularly selling out clubs around the country, he knows the path to obscurity is swift for many working comics.
“To be around for a long time you really have to have somewhat of a following,” he said. “It’s just like in sports. There’s people coming up that will work for less money and are hungry, so you’re competing with every generation every couple years.”
Irrera, who will perform five sets at Comedy Works tonight and Saturday, has stayed ahead of the game by branching into other forms of entertainment (writing for “Dr. Katz,” doing voice work for the hit animated movie “Barnyard”) and weathering all manner of potentially harsh environments. The kind of racist, thin-skinned outburst that sank “Seinfeld” alum Michael Richards in November would never befall Irrera, and not just because his act once dealt head- on with his Italian heritage.
“I did some stuff in (my act) about Michael Richards when that happened,” said Irrera, whose manager also owns the club at which Richards blew up. “It was a very unusual situation. When I get hecklers, I just start talking to them. I got one last night and she was saying, ‘Is there anything on after you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, stick around. The audience is going to leave and there will be plenty of show left.”‘
Irrera’s love of sports led him to host four seasons of Comedy Central’s football show “Offsides,” which allowed him to conduct unorthodox interviews with his favorite players, including Broncos Rod Smith and Jason Elam.
“A lot of these guys actually wanted to talk to me because I was doing comedy and not serious journalism,” said Irrera. “It gave them a chance to be funny. But I try to only do sports comedy in my act if it’s something that people will really know. I don’t like to leave half the audience out.”
Tailoring his approach to connect with different audiences has kept Irrera relevant and successful. Like most good performers, he finds a way to work local references into his act, whether it’s a college gig or an international festival. He has made more appearances at Montreal’s prestigious “Just for Laughs Festival” and “The Cats Laugh Festival” in Kilkenny, Ireland, than any other American.
“I like to think we have the same sense of humor, sarcasm and irony,” Irrera said.
That humor has become increasingly sharp over the years, avoiding clichés and easy outs in favor of unpredictable turns of phrase and unflinchingly harsh observations. Comparing his current act to his South Philly origins shows just how far the comedian has come.
“Red Buttons gave me this advice once. He said, ‘Dom, don’t paint yourself into a goombah corner. Be a comedian that happens to be Italian, not an Italian comedian,’
“When I started out, that was part of my act, but it’s not now. That’s why I can play paces like Columbus, Ohio.”
Staff writer John Wenzel can be reached at 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com.
Dom Irrera
STAND-UP COMEDY|Comedy Works, 1226 15th St.; various times, tonight and Saturday|$28|303-595-3637 or comedyworks.com
