April 9th - Who's Got Jokes @ Luxor

I happen to be a proud subscriber to Vegas Evibe, the "colorful" electronic bulletin that keeps me in the know about interesting things happening around Las Vegas. An alert earlier this week hipped me to a free live taping of Who's Got Jokes going on at Luxor. Hmmm. Let's see. A chance to be entertained by Bill Bellamy for the grand fee of nada? Of course I was going! I rushed over to Luxor to make sure I got a seat since holding a ticket did not guarantee entrance. Gosh, I hate first come, first serve. Give me VIP any day.

Anyhow, I made it there with time to spare and received the honor of being one of the Who's Got Jokes 100. Who's Got Jokes is a comedy competition where comedians compete against each other in two 3 minute sets. Each contestant has to make it through their individual sets without using any potty language AND they have to be funny. If the three judges happen to give them a low score then each contestant has one chance to appeal to the Who's Got Jokes 100 to boost their score. The contestant with the highest combined score moves on to the next round of the competition. At the end of the season, the top contestant is named the overall victor. I have no idea if they win a contract or money or what.

Bill Bellamy hosted along with Rodney Perry and Tommy Ford. Tommy Ford always scared me. I was glad to be sitting in an area of the audience where I couldn't actually see him. There's just something not right about him as if he secretly drinks blood or eats children but that's neither here nor there. Last night's live taping had a parade of local and national celebrities. Since the theme of the show was paying homage to UNLV, Tark the Shark was sitting in the audience. The three judges were LisaRaye (and her incredibly stiff dog), Eric Snow and Kym Whitley. Also, George Wallace stopped by and told some surprisingly funny "yo' mama" jokes.

The four contestants were entertaining. One was very cute with his dimples and locs but he wasn't that funny. The second had the unfair advantage of having competed last season but did have great energy and delivery. I personally felt the third contestant was the funniest, partly because he just looked like a clown. The fourth was a lady. I don't think she came to win. After enjoying my usual martini with extra olives, I was tickled most by Bill Bellamy's impression of 50 cent and the frantic gyrations of one of the shadow dancers. She just kept flinging her hair as if it itched and doing this strange pee pee dance culminating in an uncomfortable disco stance. I was crying. Why don't they ever ask me to shadow dance?

Who's Got Jokes airs every Saturday at 10 p.m. (EST) on TV One. I'm not sure when this episode will air but I'm fairly confident that I made all kinds of obnoxious facial expressions during the taping.