thecatholiccomedian.com - "Our Sunday Visitor" Article

   It's a Sunday night in the suburban Los Angeles town of Hermosa Beach, and the sold-out crowd at the Comedy and Magic Club is eager to laugh, and laugh hard. They've come out for the best-kept secret in the American comedy scene -- the chance to see Jay Leno perform his weekly live 90-minute standup set at the intimate 300-seat venue, during which "The Tonight Show" host tests 20 minutes of potential news jokes for the coming week's TV monologues.
   But even comedy legends need a great warm-up act, and in Jimmy Brogan he's found one who fits him like a glove. Brogan has been Leno's best friend and writing partner for decades, including an eight-year stretch working together on "The Tonight Show" before Brogan left in 2000 to pursue his standup career full time.
Yet while Leno bounds onto the stage with buoyant confidence in a suit, Brogan walks out almost humbly, dressed in a basic white shirt and tie that makes him look like a science teacher or choir leader. The 59-year-old is slender and bespectacled, and he takes great delight in the fact he comes across rather nerdy onstage. "Hi!" he tells the crowd awkwardly, "My name's Jimmy Brogan . . . and I'm not as hip as I look."
   The crowd bursts into laughter, setting the stage for the half-hour to come in which Brogan works the crowd incessantly. Brogan manages to poke fun at dozens of audience members in a quick-witted improvisational fusillade of funny. But he also always manages to keep it clean, a trait that is central to his chosen persona as "The Catholic Comedian."
   "My whole life is really based on my education from grade school, high school and Notre Dame, and I went to Catholic schools the whole time," explained Brogan after the show. "How I treat people and perform onstage is all based in that education. My first time in front of an audience was being an altar boy in grade school, so that started my career."

Priest's influence
   While he jokes that his Irish-Catholic family "was just the 19 of us -- a small family by Catholic standards," Brogan actually grew up in Cleveland with two brothers and two sisters. His mother "named us after the apostles. My brothers were John and Thomas, and I'm James. Which was kind of cool except for my sister Judas," he jokes.
   Brogan's parents often hinted that he should try to be a priest, but he kids that "wearing black was too slenderizing" for his sticklike frame. He combined his love for comedy and his affection for the Church through his college friendship with Father Robert Griffin, a priest at Notre Dame who was a longtime columnist for Our Sunday Visitor.
   "I used to go visit him every night with a bunch of guys hanging out in his office all night exchanging jokes. He always had funny jokes like, 'Why didn't Christ go to college? He always got nailed on his boards,'" says Brogan. "Not only was he a good friend of mine at Notre Dame, but in summers in New York City, when I was starting out and was absolutely dead broke, I'd stop by a parish he'd spend summers at and he would feed me in the kitchen. He was a great friend, funny guy, very supportive of me in those lean years as well as college."
   While Brogan considered comedy during college and after, he didn't have the nerve to get on stage until he was 25. He was in New York City, doing volunteer work for then-Congressman Allard Lowenstein's re-election campaign, when the campaign fired him from his volunteer job and he suddenly realized he was living in a comedy mecca without a serious career or family to interfere with his performing ambitions.
   Brogan made his "Tonight Show" debut performing for legendary former host Johnny Carson. It was also in New York City that Brogan met Leno.

Steaks and laughs
   Brogan is talking backstage at the Comedy and Magic Club, after racing down the highway with a reporter in the front seat and Leno at the wheel of a gold, 1950s-era Buick. The banter throughout the ride and during the backstage meal of steaks is fast-paced and, of course, funny, and it's clear that Leno has a deep respect for his buddy.
   "What sparked the friendship is when you see a comic you like, you go up and approach them. If someone makes you laugh, you'll probably like them," explains Leno about their start. "It was the same with David Letterman and Robin Williams. You hit it off, and making laughs is a big part of it. We always worked every Sunday night at the Comedy and Magic Club, and Jimmy was a good sounding board. When I got 'The Tonight Show,' it was a natural extension of that."
   Brogan gives full credit to his faith -- both in keeping him grounded amid the madness of show business and in defining his point of view so thoroughly he named his website www.thecatholiccomedian.com.
   "My act is all clean and appropriate for church events. I did an event downtown at the Cathedral last year" in Los Angeles, says Brogan. "It's not that I was doing all Catholic jokes, but they were appropriate for that kind of audience. I do benefits, and did one in Long Beach where a thousand priests and nuns were there, and they loved that not one of them had to worry about being offended."

Carl Kozlowski writes from California.