He gets the crowd in a laughing mood

Roger Lundblade

Stand-up comic and audience warm-up guy for television series

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Current shows: “It will be my eighth season on ‘Will & Grace’ and ‘King of Queens.’ Tuesdays and Fridays are generally the two most popular days for filming sitcoms. I also have a couple of different Thursday shows. I have a new show called ‘Twins,’ which is from the same producers as ‘Will & Grace,’ and then my backup Thursday -- shows tape three weeks and then have a week down -- I am doing the new Jenna Elfman show, ‘Everything I Know About Men.’

“I have been doing ‘The Late Late Show’ [with Craig Kilborn and now with Craig Ferguson] for five years. In the off-season, like this summer, I go full time and I work five nights a week there, and when the sitcom season starts back up, I just give them at the beginning of the month a list of the open days I have and I fill in around the sitcoms.”

The job description: “I would always say this in my cover letters if I was looking for a new position: There’s a thin line in being the entertainment, which is the show, and the warm-up being entertaining. My job is to be entertaining and not take away from what’s going on on the floor.

“I describe the job as three things -- baby-sitter, a counselor and a comic -- because it’s not all about being up there four hours just doing knock-knock jokes, it spans the spectrum.

“With warm-up, the first thing is that the audience needs to like you. Even though they are there to see free entertainment, they are crucial for the cadence of the show and the timing, and it’s important to make sure they are laughing in a positive way.”

Salary: Averages $3,000 to $3,500 per show per week. “They paid $800 a show in ’89 and now my highest-paid show is $4,000 a show.”

Different jokes for different folks: “When I started working on ‘King of Queens’ and ‘Will & Grace,’ it was pretty interesting. ‘King of Queens’ definitely drew a blue-collar crowd and vacationers, and ‘Will & Grace,’ the first two seasons my entire audience was gay and lesbian, so my ex-girlfriend jokes suddenly had to become my ex-other-half jokes.

“When you have a show on the air for a long time, as a warm-up, your audience is already there because they like the show and it’s much easier. It’s the shows that are brand new -- they don’t have a following and you have to pay an audience [to attend] -- that are truly where a warm-up will earn their money.”

Make ‘em enthusiastic: “Most shows will be about three hours, so there is an approach of building the audience up with energy. I have done everything from cartoon quizzes or old TV trivia quizzes. My spiel for energy is that I actually wear a candy bag and I give out a lot of candy.

“I actually split my house down the center and I do a competition with the two sides. We do a lot of little dance things. If I get some 50-year-old, heavy-set guy from Iowa who comes up and dances to ‘Baby Got Back,’ the crowd will love it.

“I will bring people up and interview them. Over the last few years, most working warm-ups have a DJ to work with. It’s a nice addition.”

Still a stand-up guy: “I’m doing ‘The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson’ as a stand-up on Aug. 19. [On a recent] Tuesday when I finished ‘The Late Late Show,’ I grabbed my fiancee and I drove out to the Ontario Mills Improv to close the show out. And I have been at the Ice House quite a bit. Warm-up is a wonderful thing and you can certainly be funny, but it’s not the place to try out new material.”

Background: “I was a communications major in college. I went to Cal State Long Beach. I went to work for an ad agency. I thought that was my 9-to-5 shirt-and-tie thing, but I realized quickly that wasn’t my calling. All through college I had waited tables and somebody came into the restaurant and said, ‘You should work on a cruise ship.’ So they offered me a job to go to the Caribbean for a month. Nine years later, I had worked my way up to cruise director.

“In 1989, I was engaged to a dancer I met on ship and was going to get [work] on land. When I got on land, someone said, ‘You should look at warm-up.’ I went and watched shows and took notes. I read up on shows and just kept sending out video demos.

“Believe it or not, I was teaching comedy traffic school and I had somebody in my class who was best friends with the producer on ‘Designing Women.’ She came and saw me work at a comedy club. They were testing warm-ups because the previous warm-up was let go because he had been rude to some audience members. I had a great show [at my audition], and that same night they offered me full time to take over on ‘Designing Women’ and their sister show ‘Hearts Afire.’

“Over the years, it gets easier. I have built up a stable of producers who know me. I very rarely send out a resume or demo anymore.”

Age: 47

Resides: Studio City

Guild or Union: “For some shows you will be AFTRA like on the ‘Late Late Show’ or ‘America’s Funniest Videos.’

“I am both AFTRA and SAG because I have done some on-air things -- just last season I did a part on ‘King of Queens’ where I played a restaurant manager in one episode.”

-- Susan King