COMEDY REVIEW : Burns Up to His Old Antics

George Burns got a standing ovation Tuesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center just for coming out on stage. At his age he deserves it. “Nice to be here,” said Burns, who will be 96 in January. “It’s nice to be anywhere.”

The crowd, which had paid between $50 and $1,000 per person to attend the benefit performance for the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, clearly idolized him as most crowds do. The comedian’s status has gone beyond cultural icon to human artifact.

He probably is the only comedian on the planet--Bob Hope and Milton Berle notwithstanding--who not only can be believed when he says he introduced a song in 1916 but can get a laugh with a musical setup like this: “I predicted it was going to be a hit. And I’m going to keep singing it until it is.”

Songs, or rather a talking version of them backed on piano by Burns’ longtime associate Morty Jacobs and by the Ron Rubin band, provided some of the evening’s most charming material. “I’m going to sing eight songs,” Burns warned early on. “If you like them, I’ll sing nine. If you don’t like them, I’ll sing 38. All ballads.”

More often, though, his material was mildly risque. “I got it down,” he said, lowering himself into a white chair at stage center and adjusting the microphone to his level. “I hope I’ll be able to get it up.” In case anybody mistook him, he reminded the crowd with characteristically deadpan guile that he was talking about the microphone.

And so it went, one roguish joke after another while Burns puffed on his ever-present cigar with the quiet gusto of a man who has enjoyed many pleasures in life but none perhaps as much as the aroma of cheap tobacco.