A Softer, Tamer ‘Pit Bull of Comedy’

When Bobby Slayton started as a stand-up comic in San Francisco 13 years ago at 22, the ex-New Yorker spent a lot of time “grasping and groping,” trying to find his own stage persona and material he felt comfortable doing.

Along the way he developed his trademark caustic wit and rapid-fire delivery and became known for his no-holds-barred assault on racial, ethnic and sexual stereotypes.

The comic with the streetwise manner and raspy “Dead End Kid” voice can best be summed up by the credo he still occasionally delivers at the end of his act: “When it comes to comedy, if you can’t laugh at yourself--make fun of other people.”

The winner of the 1989 American Comedy Award as Funniest Male Comedy Club Stand-Up was once described by the New York Post as “sexist and racist, but endearing.” Another critic has called him “the kind of guy a woman would have walk her home but would never invite inside.”

Slayton, who opens at the Irvine Improvisation tonight, said he never set out to develop his reputation as “the Pit Bull of Comedy.”

“It just sort of evolved,” said Slayton by phone from his home near Marina del Rey. “I’m not really like that, although I think what I do on stage is just an extension of my personality.”

Slayton said he has been called “the Pit Bull of Comedy” about five years now.

“I find it cute,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me. And it’s better than being ‘the French Poodle of Comedy.’ I guess ‘the pit bull’ is good: He goes for the throat. He’s unpredictable. He’s volatile. One minute he’s wagging his tail, the next minute he bites your hand off. . . . I like that.”

Although Slayton’s biography says he was born in the Bronx (true), it fails to mention that he actually grew up in suburban Westchester County. “I try to hide it from anybody that I grew up in the suburbs,” said Slayton. “It isn’t that exciting or colorful.”

When he started out in comedy, Slayton said, his material “was really standard.” He’d talk about things like horror movies and health-food stores.

“I pretty much cover the same subjects now,” he said. “But I think that over time, you do it in a different way. It’s like working out: After a while you can lift more weights.”

Slayton said he has always taken stabs at racial, ethnic and sexual stereotypes in his act, although he feels he may have been doing it “in a meaner way” in the past.

“Now, I think the content of the material is much softer. It’s nothing like Dice,” he said, referring to controversial comedian Andrew Dice Clay who is particularly known for his attacks on gays and women.

“I’m nothing like that,” Slayton said. “I pretty much make fun of everybody. “

Slayton concedes that it’s not unusual for him to offend members of the audience.

“Oh, yeah, it happens all the time,” he said. “I can’t worry about everybody. Some people get so (angry) at anything. They won’t let their kids play with toy guns or watch cartoons. People are offended by ‘Married with Children’ and ‘The Simpsons.’ They’re offended by rock lyrics. . . .”

Slayton was on a roll: “These people have nothing better to do with their time? This is the real world, pal. This is 1991. They’re just words, you idiot. What entertains you? ‘Mary Poppins’? Go watch ‘Mary Poppins.’ There’s people that just get offended over nothing.”

These days, Slayton said, “I hit upon marriage and birth control, Israelis and Palestinians--whatever. I cover so many different subjects.”

He also incorporates his three-year marriage into his act. (“The other night my wife said, ‘Let’s discuss your sexual fantasies.’ I said, ‘Why? You’re not in any of them.’ ”)

Slayton said he and his wife, Teddie, took childbirthing classes together. “I was supposed to help my wife with the breathing and everything. When the baby came out, I said, ‘Take it easy. At least it doesn’t peck it’s way out.’ ”

Slayton, who is on the road 40 weeks a year, acknowledges that life on the comedy-club circuit “is getting a little monotonous.” And although his wife and young daughter frequently accompany him, he muses: “I just want to have a (TV) series so I can stay in town.”

Bobby Slayton, husband and father, is not the same as Bobby Slayton, single comedian.

“I’m a settled married guy, yeah,” he acknowledged. “I thought it would never happen. Yeah, I got the wife, I got the kid.”

Being a father, he said, “has made me a lot more tired. After the show I don’t really stay out and drink any more because I know I gotta get up in the morning and change diapers.”

Slayton laughed.

“This sums the whole thing up about being a father more than changing diapers: I never thought I’d go to Disneyland and get on ‘It’s a Small World’--and enjoy it.”