Comedy Review : Splendid Talents Can’t Quite Muster Team Feeling

Let’s start with the good aspects of the “Wack-O-Rama” comedy revue at the Brea Improv:

* John Bowman discussing how he paid dearly for getting into a stare-down with a llama.

* Bowman demonstrating the “John Bowman Party Kit,” which consists of a jacket that he puts on backward. You can try this at home, too. Guaranteed to kill.

* Todd Glass caught unaware by his camera crew on a typical day in his life, in which he does everything except get the Angels some pitching help and eradicate human greed.

* The “Laugh-In” takeoff, a group effort that dusts off the oldest and dumbest jokes in the genre yet which could hold the key to hoisting this show into the four-star category.

Now, a quick look at the not-so-good.

* Bowman as Jean Claude the Hypnotist. (Jean Claude is getting stale. Very, very stale. Isn’t his visa about to expire?)

* The revue’s failure to sustain a good pace and because of that, its inability to mold itself into one cohesive piece.

Overall, this is an enjoyable production. If you don’t like one joke, another will be along in a second. But the untapped potential is large, and that makes for a somewhat frustrating night.

Individually, the performers (also in the cast are Tommy Koenig and Lynn Shore, with Allan Murray and maybe others rotating in during the run) are all splendid talents, but as a team, they fail to sustain 90 minutes of stand-up, skits and musical parodies.

Granted, it’s a work in progress, but still, there’s something wrong when four professional performers fail to cull an hour and a half of their best stuff.

The idea originated when a number of comics were looking for a way to avoid the ups and downs that occur in many headliners’ routines, said Robert Hartmann, regional manager for the local Improvs, in a recent interview.

One can’t quibble with the premise: Take four solid performers, combine their acts, throw in some segues . . . and--poof!--90 minutes of quality time is born. Unfortunately, some of the spots go poof.

*

Ironically, it’s the “Laugh-In” segment toward the end of the show that starts tying things together. In it, against a background of music, one comedian tells a quick-hitter, then freezes while another takes over. The combination of energy and familiar material finally starts to lend the show a spark of ensemble and give it its first taste of synergy.

Other parts that move the show along are Koenig’s going disco as Chief Ironside (the old Raymond Burr role) and a strategically padded Shore doing a Tom Jones takeoff, singing “Delilah” as he roams the audience, schmoozing the adoring women. Glass also chips in with an excellent Donahue parody.

A few more morsels such as these and an effort to get all the comics together for another bit or two, would go far in moving this toward a full 90 minutes of fine entertainment.

* “Wack-O-Rama” -- a comedy revue with Todd Glass, John Bowman, Tommy Koenig, Lynn Shore and others--continues through July 10, except Monday, at the Brea Improv, 945 E. Birch St. $7 to $10. (714) 529-7878.