Garrett Brings a New Dimension to Jokes : Comedy: He gets a lot of mileage from his height. He will appear Wednesday at the Laff Stop in Newport Beach.

Six years after becoming the first “Star Search” grand champion in the comedy category, Brad Garrett prefers to downplay the television talent contest that lifted him from relative obscurity in Southern California comedy clubs.

After all, the 6-foot-9 comedian’s career hasn’t stood still since “Star Search” host Ed McMahon handed him a check for $100,000 in 1984.

Since then, Garrett, who will do two shows at the Laff Stop in Newport Beach on Wednesday, has appeared repeatedly on the “Tonight Show” and “The Arsenio Hall Show.”

He has served as opening acts for show business legends Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli. He also has been a regular on “The Hollywood Squares” and “The Match Game,” and he even starred in his short-lived CBS sitcom, “First Impressions.”

Garrett is still reaping honors. In 1989, the Las Vegas Review Journal voted him Best Opening Act/Comedy Performer in Vegas.

But there’s no denying that his big win on “Star Search” was the kind of career break that comedians would kill their mothers-in-law for.

“It gave me six weeks of television exposure in prime-time on a new show,” said Garrett in a phone interview from El Paso where he was appearing last week.

And from that prime-time exposure, he said, one thing simply led to another: After seeing him on “Star Search,” Crystal Gayle asked him to serve as opening act for her show in Las Vegas. “Tonight Show” staffers also saw Garrett on “Star Search” and asked him to audition for them. And it was on the “Tonight Show” that Diana Ross saw him and asked him to open for her. And then Julio Iglesias saw Garrett open for Ross and asked Garrett to open for him.

“It just snowballed,” said Garrett, “and here I am in El Paso. Isn’t it exciting? The hoedown’s in an hour.”

Garrett, who is on the road 30 weeks out of the year and works in casinos 12 weeks a year, is known for his deep baritone voice, his mobile face and his array of characterizations and impressions that ranges from Bill Cosby and Dustin Hoffman to James Earl Jones and Hulk Hogan (Garrett, in fact, provided the Hulkster’s voice in a Saturday morning cartoon series).

The Oxnard-born, San Fernando Valley-reared comedian is a former class clown who, despite his height, never made it as a basketball player in high school. As he says, “When you’re 6-foot-9 and can’t play ball, that’s a lot of pressure on a white guy. But I’m not supposed to be athletic. Everybody knows, Jews don’t dribble.”

The one-time waiter broke into stand-up comedy in 1981 when he was 20.

Garrett’s commanding height--”I’m a little taller than your average medical building”--plays a factor in his comedy act. He always mentions his height as soon as he walks out on stage.

“You have to,” he said, “especially at the Laff Stop--the air vent is right over my head.”

The dark-haired Garrett often says to the audience: “I know what you’re thinking: Gregg Brady and Herman Munster had a child.”

Actually, Garrett is now doing Herman Munster in his act.

“It’s probably the hardest impression I ever had to get, the voice and physicality of it. The laugh was easy,” he said, breaking into one of Herman’s booming-yet-silly laughs.

Garrett often gets requests to do the somewhat deranged Rev. Jim Ignatowski from “Taxi,” an impression that helped him win on “Star Search.”

“It’s amazing how many people remember that,” he said.

In his current act, Garrett talks about being Jewish and dating a Christian girl:

“She got me my first Christmas tree last year,” he says in his act. “My mom came over and flipped out because I had a tree. . . . I wanted both sides of the family to be happy, so I set up a Jewish Nativity scene. It was nine attorneys overlooking a small auto accident.”