COMEDY REVIEW : Jake Johannsen Steers His Stories From Pit Stop to Detour

Someone was talking to Jake Johannsen recently about the trend toward one-man comedy shows.

For some, the change is good. In an ideal situation, a top comic takes his act, gives it a theme and expands it into a 90-minute show. This gives the crowd a full night of headliner and eliminates the opening acts. In a not-so-ideal situation, a not-so-top comic waters down a 60-minute routine into a 90-minute embarrassment.

Johannsen was underwhelmed with the concept.

“I’ve always considered myself as doing a one-man show,” he said. “It’s just that there are two comedians ahead of me.”

Actually, the 33-year-old comic from Iowa City--who has made almost as many appearances on “Letterman” as the host himself--would be a prime candidate for expanding his act. He wouldn’t even have to expand it. He’d just need to trim less.

Wednesday night at the Improv (where the management coincidentally trimmed one opening act to ensure Johannsen plenty of time), he strung together 60 minutes of inspired storytelling. Johannsen relies on no master plan for his shows. He confesses to simply talking until his time runs out.

No one was complaining Wednesday night when he included the stories of one huuuge bug that crashed into his windshield, ending in a Squeegee funeral at the next stop, and his shedding cat, who constantly overestimates how much fur she’s going to need.

The selection of tales dished out by the self-described “raconteur of weird stories” depends mainly on his frame of mind. Sometimes he considers requests for a certain bit, but his general M.O. is to take his audience on a trip, weaving detours and pit stops into a wonderful outing with several related (or unrelated) episodes along the way.

Wednesday’s trip included a circuitous drive up the Golden State Freeway to San Francisco with detours that included stopping for a soft drink, relationships, vegetarianism and how it affects his love life, Sea World, packing and flying.

When he pulls off the freeway these days, Johannsen bemoans the absence of small drinks. The smallest you can get is a regular, which could never fit in the car’s beverage caddy and can barely be balanced between your legs as you’re driving. “And that’s just the regular. That’s not (the size) you can relax in,” he said, waving his his hands around, getting worked up at the thought.

Watching the show, one gets the impression that if someone strapped Johannsen’s hands to his sides, he wouldn’t be able to talk. In his low-key (but nervous low-key) delivery, the bespectacled comic constantly swept his hands around to punctuate lines, fill in gaps, wave the microphone about, keep his hair off his face. Or, he’d shove them into the pockets of his baggy brown slacks.

The strength of Johannsen’s seemingly effortless act lies basically in three things: (a) his quirky take on everyday life, (b) his ability to keep his audiences caught up in his narrative, no matter where it heads next and (c) his keeping the laugh level constant, avoiding the dead spots that plague many headliners.

It’s easy to leave the show thinking, “Yeah. When I’m packing for a trip, I have to touch my underwear as I count ‘em, too.”

* Jake Johannsen performs at the Improv, 4255 Campus Drive, Irvine, through Oct. 17. $8 to $12. (714) 854-5455.