‘HE LOOKS LIKE BOZO HAD A KID’ : Carrot Top Stands Out From the Crowd

When Scott Thompson began doing comedy in the mid-’80s, there was little to distinguish him from the horde of others doing standard stand-up fare.

So the marketing graduate from Florida made a few changes in his act: He began using props. He let his red hair grow into a long, frizzy ‘do. He started wearing colorfully mismatched clothes on stage, becoming a sort of nightmare vision of a golfer. He adopted an equally colorful stage name--Carrot Top.

And voila!

Right away, he lets his audience know that he knows what they’re thinking: “ ‘He looks like Bozo had a kid!’ . . . Right when you thought you looked like an idiot, check this out. You’re not going to believe it.”

Putting two yellow plastic clips in his hair, he announces: “I’m the Wendy’s girl! I’m Wendy!” He holds up a Wendy’s bag to show his uncanny resemblance to the girl in the logo. “I know, I know. It’s amazing . . . It’s not that cool. You pull into the drive-in: ‘Damn, she’s here! Clean up! Wendy’s here!’ ... “

“Look at this!,” he continues, grabbing a baseball cap with a life-size, gray-haired head on top. “I made this for my grandmother to wear when she drives, so her head goes above the seat.”

He pulls out a military service hat with a rubber hand attached to the side. “I made this for military men so they don’t need to worry about saluting.

“Look at this! A name tag for 7-Eleven employees.” He holds up a two-foot-long sign bearing a distinctly Middle-Eastern name.

And so it goes.

On the phone last weekend from his home in Charlotte, N.C., Carrot Top said his assortment of props has grown so large that he needs four trunks to store them. “I like most of them to be obscure, kind of weird, not mainstream,” said the comedian, who as a high school student met and was influenced by prop comic extraordinaire Gallagher.

But despite his penchant for props, Carrot Top said about 40% of his act is still standard stand-up. He likes to focus on the things about life that “don’t make sense. Like in Florida, it’s against the law to have a fire on the beach. They have a big sign on the beach that says ‘Dangerous to have campfires on the beach.’ What puts out fires? Water and sand! They’re both right here. What’s the problem? There’s no signs that say you can’t have them in the woods. “

Or, “I took Nyquil and No-Doze at the same time. I had a dream I couldn’t sleep.”

“It’s kind of goofy,” he said. “I try not to get too serious about sex, politics or religion. It’s more just a fun-filled thing.”

And how’d he come up with the name Carrot Top?

He and a couple of other people brainstormed it four or five years ago, he recalled, adding that he thinks his stage name is “perfect. People remember it. I can market it with my (carrot) logo, my T-shirts,” which he sells in the clubs. “It fits the act.

“As opposed to Scott Thompson.”