Restivo Nets Humor From Life’s Snares : Stand-up: The comic, who is at the Laff Stop in Newport Beach through Sunday, lets his character studies expose ‘middle-class <i> Angst.</i> ‘

Early in his comedy career, Joe Restivo wrote jokes for Rodney Dangerfield, Freddie Prinze, Joan Rivers and David Frye. But the Chicago-born comedian is not one to buy jokes for his own stand-up act.

“Actually, I tried to buy material from other people,” he said. “But even if I like a few things, it doesn’t feel right. There are guys who buy jokes, but they’re joke tellers, and I’m not a joke teller. Most of my stuff comes out of character.”

A TV producer once described Restivo’s humor as “middle-class Angst. “ But don’t ask the comedian, who is at the Laff Stop in Newport Beach today through Sunday, to define his own comedy style.

“I have no idea,” he said in a phone interview from his Los Angeles home. “I’m asked that question a zillion times. All I can tell you is I do a character study and a lot of the character is me, in an exaggerated form.

“I just talk about people being trapped by the world--by their stress, their anger, their reaction to being trapped. I believe that we’re all sort of trapped by something: Relationships will trap us, work will trap us, dreams could be a trap--or the lack of dreams--poor planning . . . living in the Valley.”

But don’t get the wrong idea.

“I think that my show is very uplifting,” he said. “I talk about negative things, but ultimately I think that we can survive the Angst. But you have to be aware it’s there first. When you realize what it is, then you can dump it.”

That may sound a bit philosophical for someone who makes people laugh for a living. But Restivo actually has a master’s degree in philosophy. He also has a master’s degree in business and a bachelor’s in marketing.

In fact, he was working in New York City as international marketing director for the company that makes Ponds facial cream and Vaseline petroleum jelly in 1976 when he saw his first live stand-up comedian at the New York Improv.

“I felt like I was home,” he said. “I knew I was funny. I just didn’t know how to do it.”

By hanging out at the Improv every night, he began writing jokes for comedians. By 1980, he was doing his own stand-up act.

Quitting his job to get into show business was not really that big a switch for Restivo: He was a child performer who had a recording contract in high school under the name Joey Richards and recorded, among others, “Summer Love” in 1965.

Given today’s breed of comics, Restivo doesn’t view his university background as being all that unusual.

“It used to be in the old days, 30 years ago, guys did stand-up because that’s all they could do,” he said. “They had to get out of the lower classes and the tenements. Now most of the guys have degrees. They’re making real choices. It’s a whole different ballgame. That’s why the texture of the material is different than it used to be. Most of the comics are prettybright.”

That doesn’t mean he’s putting down “the older guys,” Restivo said. “It used to be just ‘My wife is so fat. . . .’ Now comics are talking about the world, issues, relationships, emotions--really investigating life more.”

When he’s not writing and performing his own comedy, Restivo is writing TV and movie scripts. He also acts and has been in 80 TV shows, mostly dramas. On Nov. 25 he will appear in an ABC-TV movie, “I’ll Take Romance,” starring Linda Evans and Tom Skerritt.

Restivo, who will make another appearance on “Late Night With David Letterman” in a few weeks, is also co-producing a sitcom pilot.

He obviously has no regrets about abandoning his career marketing face cream and Vaseline.

“Far from it,” he said. “We’ve made a good life. We’ve got three kids, a nice big house, expensive cars--so I recommend it highly.”