Comedy cutting-edge this weekend

Anthony Jeselnik makes his debut as a Las Vegas headliner on Saturday, four days after “The Jeselnik Offensive” launched on Comedy Central.

Coincidence? Especially with “Comedy Central Vegas Weekend” attached to the advertising?

Actually, more than not, to hear Comedy Central executive Mitch Fried tell it.

“I would like to say it was all preplanned, but I would be lying to you,” says Fried, who runs the live touring business for the network.

Jeselnik and Amy Schumer, who also makes the jump from the Riviera to The Mirage on Friday, are “going to do well, but I bet next year they would sell out so much faster. The awareness level of them will be 10 times what it is now.”

So, ready or not, Las Vegas is cutting-edge this weekend, ahead of the game for a change in headlining freshly minted stars. And four Comedy Central-branded stand-up shows this weekend should refine the network’s star-making power in tandem with the younger stand-ups being able to sell tickets on the Strip.

The synergy began with Daniel Tosh becoming a Mirage regular at the peak of his “Tosh.0” fame. Now Jeselnik and Schumer could follow, if his show and “Inside Amy Schumer,” debuting on the network in late April, fare as well.

Tosh’s Mirage dates — and most of the stand-ups who work there — are independently produced by Boston promoter Bill Blumenreich. Fried is a friend of Blumenreich and the two have partnered on live dates under the Comedy Central banner in the Boston area.

This weekend’s “minifestival,” as Fried calls it, also includes Nick Swardson at The Mirage on Friday and Dave Attell teamed with Jim Norton both Friday and Saturday at the MGM Grand.

He calls the weekend shows “experiments,” but ones not necessarily aimed at resurrecting The Comedy Festival helmed by another cable network, TBS, before the recession killed it in 2009.

“There’s always comedy in Vegas,” Fried says. “You’ve got so much going on there anyway it’s silly for us to try to resurrect the festival. It wouldn’t work, unless you put so much effort into it.”

TBS filmed some of the Las Vegas festival’s events for programming and used the festival to brand the network as a home for comedy, Fried notes. “We don’t have to. We are comedy.” So Comedy Central flips the formula, using its programming to help its stars sell tickets for live appearances.

“We’re very, very supportive of our talent,” Fried says. “I will do anything in my power to help a talent out that’s a part of this network.”

This weekend didn’t allow a long window to promote the live dates on the network. So it may not be the definitive test of how many people made a destination trip to Las Vegas, versus those who were already in town buying show tickets.

Fried envisions trying this — or variations of it — a couple of times each year. How about, he muses, “a ‘Workaholics’ weekend? Have the sitcom’s stars “do stand-up and sketch, maybe have a big party with them poolside.” …

Hope you can deal with having to get some sleep on Monday night. The debut of the Stratosphere’s burlesque show “Pin Up” has been pushed from Monday to March 2.

A new lighting installation and programming will beef up production value for both headliner Frankie Moreno and “Pin Up,” for which Moreno is part of the creative team.

But Stratosphere General Manager Paul Hobson explains that a storm delayed some of the lighting system’s arrival and programming.

“We decided Saturday would be a better night to open a show,” Hobson says. “It cost us a couple of days but we’ll make good use of it” with employee performances.

“Pin Up” stars young Playboy centerfold Claire Sinclair, but the burlesque review won’t be topless.

“It’s not that we’re averse to that per se,” Hobson says, since the Stratosphere hosted the topless “Bite” for eight years. “It’s just that we were trying for something a little bit different. Something fun and sexy at the same time, that maybe doesn’t use that as a gimmick.”

Auditions drew “better talent,” he adds.

If I sound skeptical, it’s only partly because juvenile male fascinations are not so quickly folded up and stashed under the copies of Sports Illustrated. But it’s also because “Peepshow” had much the same story when it opened with its dancers wearing pasties, before coming face to face with the realities of the local competition.

And “Peepshow” had a star (Kelly Monaco) who had posed for Playboy, but was not as strongly branded with the magazine as Sinclair, a Playmate of the Year in 2011.

Hobson didn’t say the decision was irreversible, but did say it won’t reverse before the show opens.

“It’s going to be sexy, fun and seductive, but it doesn’t need to be a topless show to get there.” …

Cirque du Soleil is holding a news conference today to unveil the name and logo for its Michael Jackson-themed show that opens in May at Mandalay Bay. So apparently it’s no longer called “The Immortal,” in an attempt to distinguish the resident product from that arena tour.

I’m guessing it won’t be called “Bad” either. …

Rick Michel always has been versatile, one key to surviving 35 years as an entertainer. So switching from Dean to Frank is almost second nature.

“I didn’t think I was going to last this long in the business without slinging a burger or waiting a table,” he says. “I’m truly one of the lucky ones.”

Michel is luckier still when he fronts a 24-piece orchestra on Saturday to sing “Sinatra Forever” at the M Resort. “I finally got my name on the billboard,” he says of the self-produced (with Sandy Dobritch) gambit to make a bigger name for himself in town.

Michel always thought he sounded more like Sinatra, but David Cassidy thought he looked more like Martin. Michel ended up being the swing for both Rat Packers, plus Joey Bishop, in the original production of “The Rat Pack is Back,” which Cassidy produced at the Desert Inn in 1999.

More recently, Michel produced his own Rat Pack show, “Drinkin’-Singin’-Swingin’ ” at locals casinos, and performed with orchestras in South America. The latter windfall came after a man came up after a lounge gig at Caesars Palace and offered him a philharmonic gig, then filmed it with a nine-camera crew.

“That’s something that’s been keeping me going for the last nine years,” Michel says, proving that when strangers with accents promise you big things after lounge gigs, sometimes they really do come true.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@
reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.