Larry King has enjoyed a career in radio and TV broadcasting for more than five decades, but after Friday night, the 77-year-old's reign on CNN with Larry King Live will come to a close. So what's next? Retirement? Not exactly.
As you may have read and/or heard, the septuagenarian wants to embark on a stand-up comedy tour. Who does he think he is, Glenn Beck? In an interview published a couple of weeks ago in New York Magazine, however, King said he definitely wanted to pursue life as a comedian, saying: “I’m funny. I’m going to do stand-up. That’s what I love.”
King stood by his intentions when he appeared more recently on Jimmy Kimmel Live, telling Kimmel: "I want to do some comedy. You know, I do a lot of conventions and stuff, speak a lot. I like making people laugh, telling stories." He said his current wife would open for him on the road by singing. "We did it in Vegas. We did it in Niagara Falls. I love it." But why? He continued, telling Kimmel:
"A comic has something nobody else has: The power to walk on a stage, have an audience in the grasp of your hands, and make 'em laugh. There's nothing like that. There's no bigger high. It's bigger than sex!"
So what will Larry King, the talk-show host, look and sound like as a stand-up comedian? Let's hop in our Internet Time Machine (aka YouTube) to get a glimpse of his "world debut" at the USANA Health Sciences convention in 2009. The USANA folks say King delivered a 20-minute set that included a story about speaking in front of the Mafia.
In this first clip, King makes a couple of cracks about his age. So far, s'ok. But then he devotes a few minutes to essentially recapping some of Yogi Berra's famous quotes. And gets laughs. Merely quoting Yogi Berra. Really easy and cheap. I hope King has some actual material of his own. Or maybe he could do that Hal Holbrook/Mark Twain thing and tour the country as Berra! I kid, I kid. Roll it.
Well, he does have some comedic stories about himself, too, as this second clip has him explaining his misadventures as a 20-something in the 1950s, agreeing to speak for the Rotary Club in Miami.
It may work in Vegas and Niagara Falls, but where else? I doubt you'll see King playing a comedy club near you anytime soon, but I wouldn't be surprised to expect he'll rake in quite a bit of money doing corporate gigs like the USANA one above.