COMEDY REVIEW : When It Comes to Stupidity, Engvall Is Well-Spoken

Bill Engvall may well be the quickest drawl in the West.

A transplanted Texan living in Los Angeles, Engvall speaks with a slight Suhthun accent but shoots holes in the stereotype that a drawl means a slow talker or a dim bulb.

Indeed, at the Irvine Improvisation on Tuesday, he not only proved to be a deceptively adept and rapid-fire joke-slinger, but laced his act with various observations about dim bulbs. Few comics address stupidity as thoroughly or as--uh--intelligently.

On stage less than a minute, Engvall had already planted the seeds of his Stupid People signature piece that would pop up later and continue to grow throughout the next 50 minutes: He cautioned the audience about drinking too much “because then you’ll start eating stupid stuff,” such as a 7-Eleven burrito at 2 in the morning.

“Sometimes you don’t even mess with the microwave, do ya? Nooo. A bean-and-meat Popsicle sounds good right about now.”

Not particularly hilarious, nor up to the level of his best stuff. But with that, he had established the Stupid theme. And in the next breath, confessing that after a few too many drinks he sometimes eats Spam, he also established that he isn’t necessarily above that kind of stupidity--that he’s one of us.

At that point, he had the crowd firmly on his side, so it wasn’t overly surprising when he segued into his next section (a sharp piece on air travel) and elicited the first big wave of laughter and applause of the night. (That raises one of the few downsides of the show: pacing. These portions when he “killed” came as distinct segments--rather than running continuously--which means the same goes for the lulls. The set sagged noticeably near the end, before a strong close.)

After the extended air-travel bit, and a shorter one about a few Texas traits--both with fleeting mentions of the word stupid --Engvall officially commenced the Stupid People piece with an anecdote about pulling into a Texas gas station with a flat tire. The attendant surveyed the situation, then asked: “Tire go flat?”

Engvall: “No. Hell, I was driving around, and those other three just swelled right up on me.”

Attendant: “You serious? Swelled right up on you, huh? Boy, I ain’t never seen anything like that.”

After sharing this excerpt from Gullible’s Travels, Engvall lobbied for some informal legislation: “I think stupid people should be forced to wear signs that just say: ‘I’m Stupid.’ That way, you wouldn’t rely on them, would you?”

The remainder of Engvall’s set operated as a textbook example of using a callback: While careful not to overdo it, he slipped “sign” references into several pieces, including one about a guy, confronted by a basenji in someone’s yard, who decides that he has gone deaf (“It’s a barkless dog, stupid--here’s your sign”).

And much of his material was wry and clever, without the sign stuff. Informing us that his wife was trying to interest him in macrame, he expressed little enthusiasm: “Macrame? That’s like bondage for driftwood.”

In a section about his wife’s pregnancy, he said they bought a game to help revitalize their sex life. “It’s got 24 different sexual positions on it, which is 22 more than I knew existed; there were positions that even Gumby would’ve gone: ‘ No way .’ ”

He closed with another mention of his wife, saying that when he’s traveling and calls home, she insists on putting their dogs on the phone. “I’ve learned not to say no. . . . Yes, pumpkin, I love our dogs. I just don’t think they understand ENGLISH!”

Then, neatly personifying one of the dogs on the phone: “Bill, thank God I got ahold of you! She’s not walking us; she’s feeding us dry dog food again. . . .”

Taking the delightful absurdity one step further, Engvall added: “Like he’s gonna go to his buddies, ‘Hey, listen, I just talked to Bill. Everything’s cool.’ ”

In Bill Engvall’s world, even the dogs talk with a drawl--and are pretty darn smart, too.

Bill Engvall headlines a bill with Milt Abel and George Cantor that continues through Sunday at the Irvine Improvisation, 4255 Campus Drive, Irvine. Tickets: $6-$10. Call (714) 854-5455 for show times and reservations.