So two jesters walk into a tent ...

INSULT COMICS, dirty comics, prop comics, impressionist comics, comics who pretend for unclear reasons to work for the cable company -- all these I knew about. But, until last weekend, I had no idea there were comics who play only Renaissance fairs.

Two of them, MooNiE the Magnif’Cent and Broon, each are drawing 500 people to shows at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale this month. It turns out that being a Renaissance fair comedian can be a pretty good gig. Especially because very few women in regular comedy clubs corset their breasts as high as physics will allow.

The Renaissance kings of comedy used to be Puke and Snot, who started their swordplay-and-double-entendre act in 1974. To dethrone them, MooNiE and Broon had to break some rules.

MooNiE, for instance, told me that he recently quoted my column about Don Imus during his show, which shocked me because I didn’t think Imus was quite old enough to be around during the Renaissance. That’s when I found out that MooNiE and Broon dropped the whole Elizabethan shtick. It was also when I found out that these guys know how to kiss up to the guy who’s writing about them.

“When I first came here, I ruffled feathers,” said Broon, 40, who looks a lot like a smiley Nicholas Cage, sitting backstage on lawn furniture next to a camping tent and three female groupies. “But trust me, if I see my boss in the audience, I tone it down.”

Broon’s show, at the Fool’s tent in the back of the enormous, map-required, 10,000-person fair, was standing room only. In between a basic card trick, impressive juggling and some fire eating, Broon made quick Dennis Miller-esque asides, including a sly 2nd Amendment joke making fun of NRA members for being too stupid to know what commas mean. He was legitimately funny. And not just for a guy in leggings and a vest.

MooNiE’s show immediately followed, and the two tag-teamed the stage all day. MooNiE, 43, who basically doesn’t talk onstage, did a juggling, tightrope, audience-interaction bit that was angry, dirty and nearly Cirque du Soleil good. He stole a guy’s cigarette, seemingly in disapproval, and then smoked the entire thing himself.

He passed around a giant wicker basket after the show that was quickly overflowing with fives and singles. The tips account for half his income, supplementing the fee from the fair, which supports his three kids and stay-at-home wife. People look at him funny because he pays for everything with small bills, he said, even his airline tickets: “I fly for change every single weekend.” When I looked at him with disappointment, he added, exasperated, “On a dragon.”

They are unapologetic vaudevillians, and their comedy is broad, physical and punctuated by circus tricks. For all the free mead, these guys work hard, doing five shows a day, traveling more than 30 weekends a year to as many of the overlapping festivals as they can.

People, it turns out, still love vaudeville. “It’s been relegated to backwater venues except for Vegas and cruises,” said MooNiE. Someone needs to study the link between juggling/magic acts and exposed cleavage.

MooNiE started working fairs when he was 17 and still called Philip Johnson and not quite as spastic with the shift key. His theater buddy in high school, Tom Morello, suggested they try out for a Renaissance fair in the Chicago area. For three years they worked as performers until Morello quit and eventually became the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine. Because before you rage against a machine, you have to rage against coolness.

Morello’s path, according to Broon, isn’t as weird as it sounds. Sure, the nerds at RenFair are more obvious because of their full-out nerd costumes of non-Elizabethan stripes. I saw wenches, jousters, pirates, belly dancers, two different Sith lords and a guy in a Huey Lewis T-shirt -- which was me. But there are nerds everywhere, Broon said, even at rock shows, obsessively writing down set lists and announcing the origin of songs. “Nobody pushes out cool naturally, not even Jack Nicholson,” Broon said. “I watch these cool people, and by 20 minutes in they’re laughing and drop the pretense.”

This is a very convincing argument until I realize no one cool has ever come to a comedy show at a Renaissance fair. Which might explain why the people here are willing to give comedy that hasn’t been hip in 80 years a chance. And they’re luckier for it.

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jstein@latimescolumnists.com