GRAND RAPIDS –
helped launch Jim Breuer’s career, and he’s grateful for the four seasons he spent with Will Ferrell, Cheri Oteri and Molly Shannon.
Colin Quinn and Darrell Hammond also joined the cast of the late-night, sketch comedy show along with Breuer in 1995.
“I loved the cast we had. We had a great cast,” he said. “I loved working and doing characters and seeing the different, huge entertainers”
"I would have loved to have been there a decade," he said of the 37-year-old show that launched the careers of Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner.
Like any job, things change, and the New York native doesn't miss all of it.
"I wanted to be on there for 10 years, but it's harder than everyone thinks," said Breuer, who will be in Grand Rapids this week for Gilda's LaughFest.
The grueling week of work to get the live show on the air on Saturday night typically was followed by late-night celebrations that went on and on.
Gilda’s LaughFest 2013
What: Jim Breuer
When: Sunday, March 10, 2013
Where: Fountain Street Church, 24 Ransom Ave. NE
Tickets: $27.50-$32.50 Ticketmaster.
More info: Call 616-735-HAHA (4242) or go to LaughFest's website
“I’d miss an entire Sunday,” he recalled. “I haven’t really drank since SNL”
Breuer will be in town on Sunday for the 10-day celebration of seriously funny stuff, named for the late Gilda Radner, an original cast member of “Saturday Night Live,” who died of ovarian cancer in 1989.
Radner was a Detroit native, and Breuer, who was in Jackson and Saginaw in 2011, said he enjoys doing the Great Lake State.
“You’ve got the whole blue collar thing, and you need some kind of struggle,” he said. “Rock and comedy work really well there.”
Breuer’s memorable characters included “Goat Boy,” who hosted the fictional TV show, “Hey, Remember the 80s?” and his spot-on impersonation of Joe Pesci, often with SNL cast mate Colin Quinn as Robert De Niro.
Eventually Pesci and De Niro made surprise appearances on the air.
“The first thing he said to me is, aren’t you going to thank me for giving you career?” Breuer recalls Pesci saying to him.
"Saturday Night Live" helped launch his career, but the actor who starred in the 1998 film "Half Baked" with Dave Chappelle and radio host of "Fridays with Jim Breuer" on Sirius Satellite Radio's Raw Dog Comedy channel, has had a lengthy career as a stand-up comedian.
Comedy Central, in fact, named Breuer No. 91 on its 2004 all-time list of “100 Greatest Standups,” which the 45-year-old entertainer dismisses.
“People don’t care about that stuff,” he said. “I don’t really care about that. It doesn’t put people in the seats. Being funny puts people in the seats.”
The 20-year veteran of standup comedy is one of several headliners coming to Grand Rapids for the 10-day festival seriously funny stuff.
Related: More than 20 LaughFest shows sold out; tickets going fast for several more
Entertainers range from Justin Willman, who hosts “Cupcake Wars” and “Last Cake Standing” on the Food Network, to Bill Burr, who’s stars in “Stand Up Guys” with Al Pacino and Christopher Walken, who’s as blue as blue can be.
Breuer, however, keeps his language clean, but delivers adult-level humor, just the same.
“You think I should have been cursing the whole time,” Breuer said. “But you leave thinking, I could have brought my kids or my parents.”
Breuer, notably, did bring his father, Jim Sr., on tour with him, beginning in 2008, an experience captured in the 2010 documentary, "More than Me," with Breuer taking care of his father while on the road for the first time in six years.
“In the movie, he has accidents, he can’t take care of himself,” Breuer said. “There’s a funny scene, I’ve got my dad in a wheel chair, it’s about 10 degrees outside, and nobody’s stopping for us,” Breuer said.
Now 90 years old, Jim Sr. share a wicked sense of humor with his son, but the World War II veteran who saw service in the South Pacific, also uses it to keep people at arm’s length.
The one-hour film is funny and raw at the same time.
“If this movie wasn’t mine, I’d say it’s one of the must-see films for everybody,” he said. “It’s such a moving movie, and it touches lives like none other.”
Married and the father of three, Breuer’s routine is observational and improvisational, dealing with everyday life.
He also does characters, and, yes, he still does a bit of “Goat Boy.”
“If I go to a concert, they better do the songs that got me in the seats,” he said. “Whatever makes them laugh.”
Here's Jim Breuer with his impersonations of heavy metal music
E-mail Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk: jkaczmarczyk@mlive.com
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