Chic Magazine - July 1994

Comic's Trip
Comic of the Month - Bob Larson

Profile by Corky Bernstein

"If there's anything I say tonight that offends anybody - get the fuck out!"

He's a big ol', naive giant. A massive, passive lumberjack. A small-town boy who calls his mother regularly. And up until two years ago, he hunted and killed his own food. Now he's eating tuna out of a can.

"I read where this woman was opening a can of chunky tuna and the label fell off, and there was a cat food label underneath it. So she's suing for half a million. So I bought a can of that tuna, and I could not tell the difference between cat food and tuna. So I made a sandwich and ate it. I went golfing that afternoon. I took a shot in the sand trap. I was even trying to cover it up."

At 6-4, 270-pounds, "Beer Belly" Bob Larson can take a shit just about anywhere he wants. "I don't like people who get easy money suing insurance companies. There's a woman who's suing Nintendo for $10,000. She claims that she sat and played the game so long that she developed carpal tunnel of the wrists. I thought, Hey, I hope she wins. 'Cause if she wins, I'm going to sue HUSTLER Magazine. But I'm only going to sue for $5,000 'cause I brought my own joystick."
The former kung fu champ was cracking skulls until he got thumbed in the eye eight years ago. So he started cracking jokes instead.

"Guys aren't any different. Orel Hershiser, the pitcher for the L.A. Dodgers, signed the biggest contract in baseball history at that time - $7.9 million. That same week, Rock Hudson's lover got $21.5 million. I'll tell you folks, I never thought I'd see the day when a pitcher made less than a catcher."

A road comic's comic, Beer Belly Bob works 215 nights a year, from one-night hell-gigs in Vermillion, South Dakota, to week-long engagements at Stanford and Sons in Kansas City, where a lady heckler asks him if he's wearing Bugle Boy jeans.

"Yeah, there's a bugle in these jeans. In fact, why don't you come up here and blow reveille for me?"

After the room calms down, Beer Belly Bob segues into one of his favorite topics. "You can't tell gay guys from straight guys anymore. I think male strippers are gay, and I'll prove it. There's a thousand women in the room. These guys are all oiled up. They got a little G-string on. All them women are reaching for that G-string to put a dollar under it - and their dicks are as limp as Old Yeller's tongue on a hot Georgia day. Hell, put a guy like me in there. I'll have a hard-on so big, I'd be knocking beer bottles off the tables. They'd have to pass out eye protectors!"

The lady heckler makes another wisecrack: "You're just jealous 'cause they're better-looking than you."

Beer Belly Bob counters: "You know, miss, I'm starting to think you're only good for two things. Well, three if you'll take a dick up your ass."

His retort knocks her out, and Larson continues with his hokey, folksy, homespun humor. "How many guys remember the first time they had sex?" The lady heckler's boyfriend raises his hand.

"I mean with a partner." Score another for Beer Belly Bob. "Women don't understand how hard it is for guys to score. The other day I got caught up in a whirlwind relationship. I didn't even know the girl's name till the next morning when I read the tag on her toe." It's a groaner, but that's what Larson's humor is all about. "Hey, I sent her flowers.

"Well, ladies, you know, it's easier for you. Guys have to practice. We're very excitable. Anything can set us off. For example, how many ladies have heard 'Jeez, I think I just came on your prom dress?' And that's during the first slow dance of the evening.

The first time I had sex, guys scared me. They're saying, 'You're going to be able to feel the Earth move.' Sure enough, my first time came, I could feel the Earth move. But what happened was, my foot accidentally kicked the emergency brake, and we started going downhill. And we got stuck in the ditch at the bottom of the hill. I had to call a tow truck to get us out of there. The whole experience cost me 350 bucks: 50 bucks for the tow truck - he refused Triple A. She accepted Visa."

On seeing Elvis: "People say they've seen Elvis. They think he's alive, but they have no proof. The other night I'm having dinner with a friend of mine, John F. Kennedy. And I know it's Kennedy 'cause the whole right side of his head is missing."

Bob Larson has appeared in the Splash comedy revue at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, headlines in comedy clubs around the country and is the hometown favorite in Mendota Heights, Minnesota.