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Visiting Columbus' Funny Bone Comedy Club for the second time in as many years, Joe Rogan put on a somewhat foul, but funny performance to an enthusiastic crowd. When he was last in Columbus, Rogan was fresh off of five years of playing Newsradio's Joe Garelli, the conspiracy-minded electrician. Although many in the crowd recognized him at that performance, it was nothing compared to his reception February 8th, now that he is the host of Fear Factor, NBC's successful reality program. It didn't hurt that a special edition of Fear Factor featuring Playboy centerfolds was shown earlier in the week during halftime of the Super Bowl, or that he survived sitting in on a couple of Howard Stern shows from Las Vegas during the week. All this meant a ticket price that was eight dollars higher than his last trip through the Midwest.

The last time I saw Joe Rogan, I was warned no less than four times, during the ticket buying process about the humor that Rogan would perform. When we picked up the tickets, we were warned yet again by the ticket taker, prompting this exchange:

Ticket taker: "You are aware that this show will feature adult humor."

Us (laughing): "Yes, we have heard that a bunch of times."

Ticket taker (sincerely): "This is no laughing matter."

Which seems to be a strange thing to say just before entering a comedy club. Indeed, at that show Rogan did perform a sexually-charged, expletive-filled set, but probably nothing worse than any other comedian.

His most recent show, about half of which drew on content from his previous show, had the same warnings, but was noticeably tamer. Whether or not this was a conscious decision by Rogan, there was still enough sexual humor to offend a close-minded individual. Fortunately, that is not me.

Rogan started the set with new material that poked fun at his new livelihood, reality television. He said that soon his show would just beat people with sticks, since they wouldn't be able to find any more challenges. He then talked about how each network is getting more extreme with each show, with Fox naturally leading the way. He proposed a show titled "Whose My Baby's Daddy?" where women would sleep with five men and then have nine months to figure out who is the father of her child. Most of the humor revolved around how Americans will do anything to be on TV.

Other new bits dealt with the war of terrorism and his life with his girlfriend. Overall, the material went over well, but it was obvious that it was new by the sometimes stilted manner in which Rogan delivered some of the jokes. I have a feeling that with his schedule, Rogan hasn't had enough time to practice and try out all the material.

Opening for Rogan again was Chris McGuire whose self-deprecating act was welcome by the audience. The emcee, local comic Rob Thompson, was excellent and warmed up the crowd well for Rogan.

SCFM -- February 18, 2002