Brian Regan Career rise has been slow but steady for comedian who has Ohio roots

By JOHN BENSON

entertainment@vindy.com

In a recent phone interview with stand-up comedian Jim Breuer, the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member said funnyman Brian Regan is easily the most underrated performer in comedy.

A touring comedian for more than a quarter of a century, Regan, who attended Heidelberg College in Tiffin, is humbled when the compliment is retold. So why isn’t he a bigger star in the stand-up world?

“I don’t know, man, I can only do so much from my end,” laughed Regan, calling from his Las Vegas home. “It’s weird, I think my following has grown but at such a slow steady pace, it’s sort of like the tortoise and the hare kind of thing. I feel like my career has been the tortoise, just kind of walking along and at least I don’t stop.”

He added, “My little boy has a game called Katamari where something just rolls along and picks up objects and gets larger and larger. When I was playing this game with him I was like, ‘This is sort of my fanbase: I just gradually get a couple of more fans and a couple of more and a couple of more.’ And it just kind of keeps moving along, but I never had that career moment that just shot things off. Everything has just been slow and cumulative, which is fine by me.”

The slow progression over the years has also meant a shift in material. The observational Regan, who comes to Youngstown’s Stambaugh Auditorium on Saturday, said he’s now discussing middle-age topics — such as high cholesterol and hearing loss — in his sets.

As far as career benchmarks, he’s planning on releasing a new comedy CD this summer, but his eye is on something bigger: network television. Currently he has a development deal with Fox, which puts him in a strange position of being in business with television executives.

“I guess my opinion of network executives changes with whether or not I’m involved with the project,” Regan laughed. “If I’m not in the project, then they’re a lot more ridiculous than if I am in the project. There’s definitely something strange about art by committee. I often wonder if you were to take some classic painters, groundbreaking artists from over the years, like a Van Gogh, and put them in a field painting and put a bunch of network executives on bleachers throwing in their two cents, what they’d end up with? It just seems like sometimes they get involved with the art maybe a little bit more than they should.”

Speaking of uncomfortable moments, Regan has a request to those folks who may know him from his days in Tiffin and are planning on attending his Youngstown show. What he’s hoping to do is avoid a Facebook- personified nightmare.

“Sometimes I get blindsided at a show in Ohio,” Regan said. “People will come up around a corner and say, ‘Do you remember me?’ ‘No, tell me who you are, please.’ One of my least favorite questions is, ‘Do you remember me?’ Listen, if you think there’s a chance I don’t, then why are you asking me that and putting me on the spot?’”