Carrot Top props up Luxor with contract extension

Carrot Top performs an impression of Mick Jagger each night in his show at Luxor. The prop comic performs some moves like Jagger, alternating between a microphone and an oxygen mask during “Start Me Up.”

The song is interrupted by the sound of a faltering car engine. The comic then drops to the stage.

The crowd howls. But Jagger is not slowing down. Nor is the Vegas headliner whose legal name is Scott Thompson.

The enduring prop comic is extending his remarkable run at Luxor’s Atrium Showroom through 2030. By then, the headliner whose legal name is Scott Thompson will be 65 years old. The deal is an extension of the contract Thompson signed in 2019, carrying the show through 2025.

At the end of the term, he will have headlined Luxor for 25 years. He had been at MGM Grand’s Hollywood Theater, now David Copperfield Theater, for several years until, as he says, “David Copperfield made me disappear.”

An old joke, but no bit or reference is too old for Carrot Top, who sometimes slips into a Johnny Carson or Casey Kasem impression and counts George Carlin as an influence.

“It’s interesting, I was just talking about this on the way in today, I don’t feel any different. I still feel young. I still feel energized,” Thompson said following Wednesday night’s performance. “I mean, there will be one night I’m sure I’m gonna say, ‘Uh-oh, I’m not moving so well …’”

Wednesday was not that night. It was Carrot Top’s 18th anniversary at Luxor. There was cake (carrot, of course), and also rock ‘n’ roll. Sebastian Bach showed up, unannounced and to raucous response, to sing the Skid Row staple “18 And Life.”

This was after Topper’s assistant, Jeff Molitz, took the stage in a Bach costume to make his own run at the song.

The comedian backpedaled when Bach strode to the stage, gleefully bowing and pointing, acting like a kid. As he said later, “I still have fun on stage.”

Thompson has added a show-closing tribute to Gallagher, introduced just after the master comedian died in November 2022. Not to give it away, but the backstory is sweet and the closing act explosively on-brand.

The comic debuts new props in every show, but is performing more straight stand-up than when he opened at Luxor in November 2005. He dives into his autobiography, sharing such family stories as how is father, Larry, trained NASA astronauts on the Gemini and Apollo missions; and his brother, Garrett, is a former Air Force “Top Gun” pilot.

The comic calls his brother as “Garrett Top,” and himself, in his senior years, as “Cotton Top,” copping a line from his nephew years ago.

Thompson also shows the clip of him losing to fellow comic Bob Zany in “Star Search” in the early ’90s. The comics’ shared confusion over Ed McMahon’s reading of the scores (“Bob Zany, you have four and three-quarters stars!”) is priceless.

“Everyone, from my friends to my brother to my family members, wouldn’t change anything in the show,” Thompson said. “I finally started talking about my life, my family, and my career. They love it. It’s kind of a cool thing.”

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.