Three Heads Can Be Funnier Than One : TRI-LAUGHALON

The Three-Headed Comic?

“It sounds like a freak show,” acknowledges Don Barnhart. “‘No one gets out alive!”’ Barnhart is one-third of “the Three-Headed Comic,” an act that also includes Doug Benson and Jim Hope. Instead of each doing his standard solo performance, they have teamed up to do a 90-minute “tag-comedy” act that is equal parts stand-up, sketch comedy and improvisation. Here’s how it works:

All three are introduced. Then one remains in the spotlight while the other two sit on the side of the stage. The first one up does a small portion of his stand-up act, then “tags” one of the others (usually with a high-five), who takes over.

“There’s a five-minute rule,” Barnhart explains. “You cannot do more than five minutes at a time. You don’t have to do all five minutes. You can do one joke if you want. You tag out to one of the other comics, and he either continues on with what you were talking about or takes it in his own direction.”

In any case, Barnhart said, each comic adds his distinct style to this fast-paced mix, which can end up resembling what would happen if a remote control clicker went berserk.

“Doug is low-key cerebral,” Barnhart said. “Jim is the over-enthusiastic political guy. Which leaves me in the middle. I come off looking normal compared to those two. I’m more this surfer, intellectually naive type.

“There’s something for everybody: If you don’t like the political thing one guy did--Bang!--here’s another guy doing something crazy after that.”

But the tag stand-up segment is just for starters. The trio rounds out the show with tag sketches and improvisational routines.

The sketches, which last only a minute or two, may include “An Evening With the Spit-Take Brothers,” in which two of them play old comics sitting around the house doing “spit takes” after every joke.

“It’s stupid and funny, and all we end up doing is spraying on each other,” Barnhart said.

The trio even may do “sketch stand-up”--in which two of them will act out what the other is talking about: “If it’s a movie,” Barnhart said, “we’ll act out part of the movie--or we may act an entirely different movie than what he’s talking about.”

The comedy veterans, who’d run into each other frequently on the club circuit, had talked about joining forces for several months before trying it out last summer. After working on the tag-comedy format in a couple of one-nighters, they did their first full week at the Brea Improv in September.

Since then, they’ve done weeklong gigs in San Francisco and Tempe, Ariz. Although they’re continuing their solo careers, they’re generating more Three-Headed bookings.

“The first couple of minutes,” Barnhart said, “people are asking, ‘What’s going on? ‘ By end of the show, they’ve been pretty blown away.”

And so have the three performers. After 90 minutes on stage, Barnhart said, “we’re drained, but in a very good way. There is so much satisfaction. You pretty much hone your comedy resources, because you’re pulling from every pocket.”

What: The Three-Headed Comic (Don Barnhart, Doug Benson and Jim Hope).

When: Thursday, Oct. 29, and Sunday, Nov. 1, at 8:30 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 30, at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 31, at 8 and 10:30 p.m.

Where: The Improv, 4255 Campus Drive, Irvine.

Whereabouts: Take the San Diego (405) Freeway to the Jamboree Road exit and head south. Turn left onto Campus Drive. The Improv is in the Irvine Marketplace shopping center, across from the UC Irvine campus.

Wherewithal: $7 to $10.

Where to call: (714) 854-5455.