Food, fat jokes staples of Anderson’s ‘Boomer’ comedy

7186835-0-4

No matter how old Louie Anderson was at various points in his career, his fans always seemed more of his parents’ generation.

Now, to hear him tell it, the 59-year-old comedian has reached premature codgerdom. His ailments are those of much older men: the clicking noises as he walks, that unexplainable smacking sound with his mouth, and the tight 10-and-2 grip on the steering wheel as other cars pass him, honking.

“As soon as you hit 50 you start hitting curbs,” he says, asking himself, “When did they put that in?”

“When they built the street.”

Perhaps not the kind of social commentary you’d expect in a show called “Big Baby Boomer.” But it works out.

The older fans are already in. And as boomers age, the generation obsessed with itself starts to spend more time at Walgreens (“Drugstores are our new discos,” he notes) and less at rock festivals where they could wear their tie-dye Louie Anderson “Big Baby Boomer” T-shirts, perhaps the funniest Vegas souvenir since dice earrings.

Anderson is here to give them a preview of coming attractions. The new set he created primarily for a CMT cable special last March is devoted mainly to the care and feeding of the body – and the price of doing a bad job of it.

You can say this about Anderson and his boomer-comic contemporaries: They make it look so easy to be onstage, and they stay true to the comedic identities they staked out years ago.

Food and family are Anderson’s primary themes, but he mostly gives the latter a rest this time. Not so with the fat jokes, which arrive with the opening line: “Wasn’t it a beautiful day today? I almost went for a walk.”

Anderson’s lifelong weight issues are celebrated with simple confessions such as “I love sugar,” as he salivates his way down the fast-food strip from McDonalds (“You could bring someone out of a coma with the fat smell” of the old trans-fat fries) to Krispy Kreme (“What cartel brought that into the country?”).

But he sneaks up to the downside with a darker-tinged routine, first performed at the Excalibur a few years ago, about his angioplasty.

It manages to be a bit cautionary while remaining unapologetic and true to the Louie code as he talks about “driving myself to the hospital so I could have the last cigarette,” and “looking for something to steal” when alone in a hospital exam room.

Anderson says he is healthier these days, and he has shown a renewed work ethic in nearly two years at the Palace Station showroom that carries his name (and is decorated with his career memorabilia).

A few years ago, he seemed happy to coast and pad a set with crowd banter. Now his few detours into the “Where ya from?” stuff are brief and sometimes even find their way back to the main topic.

Offstage, Anderson told me his set has more actual punch lines now than it has had in years, motivated by competition for his attention from glowing phone screens in the audience.

In his act, Anderson is resigned to the inevitable, slow march to obsolescence. “I don’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” As a working comic though? Don’t you dare believe it.

Most shows begin with a set from Anderson’s usual opening act Jason Schommer, another heavyset Minnesotan with a soft-spoken style. Schommer acknowledges the local casino’s pull with Las Vegas-centric topics such as the Spaghetti Bowl.

Schommer undersells his delivery to the point of some jokes falling short of their potential. But one thing you can say of both these Midwestern big guys: They talk to you, not at you.

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