For Comedians, Timing Is Everything : Understandably, This Comic’s Stunt Didn’t Sit Well With Burbank Fire Officials

Some of the best stand-up comics keep abreast of current events. It can help maintain a timely edge in their humor, and it can dissuade them from pulling really, really dumb stunts.

Take Los Angeles, for example, which sat uneasily at the heart of a six-county conflagration zone last October/November that resulted in $1 billion in damages and $100 million in firefighting costs. Well, May is the month in which the firefighters start warning us about ways to prevent such matters. . .and it was the month that comedian Bob Goldthwait decided to set fire to the guest chair on “The Tonight Show” in Burbank.

Bad career move.

Rather predictably, the stunt angered Burbank fire officials, and now Goldthwait has been charged with unlawfully causing a fire and possession of something flammable with the intent to burn property. Both are misdemeanors.

Goldthwait has apologized through his manager. But we have 10 better ways in which he might make amends (with apologies to David Letterman):

10) Switch to decaf.

9) Volunteer to clean portable toilets at the next Southern California Firefighter Combat Challenge competition.

8) Submit to sitting through every minute of every meeting of the Burbank City Council for a year.

7) Offer to take over Mayor Riordan’s joke writing for the same period of time.

6) Submit to a makeover on the Regis and Kathie Lee show.

5) Offer to spend a week as a hood ornament on a Burbank City Fire Department truck.

4) Offer to play the role of a fire hydrant in the non-animated remake of “101 Dalmatians.”

3) Commit to bring his own chair to any interviews with The Times.

2) Promise to not apply for a job with the Los Angeles Fire Department.

1) Take voice lessons.