Sit-Down Comedy

Chris Fonseca knows that his wheelchair and slow speech will stop most people from laughing, so he cracks a joke about them right off.

“I know it’s not politically correct to call myself handicapped,” the comedian who calls himself “Crazy Legs” Fonseca tells a crowd at the Latino Laugh Festival in San Antonio. “I should call myself ‘physically challenged’ or ‘developmentally disabled’ or . . . [pause] . . . ‘resident of Arkansas.’ ”

The crowd cheers.

“You may recognize me,” he deadpans to another audience. “I was once an Olympic figure skater. That damn Tonya Harding.”

More laughter.

“I think it really breaks the ice right up front,” said Fonseca, who was born with cerebral palsy, in a recent phone interview. “Basically, what I’m trying to get at is [the idea that] I know I’m in a wheelchair; it’s OK to laugh. I think political correctness has no place in comedy. One of the basics of humor is pointing out oddities or differences.”

He’s happy to break down stigma surrounding disabilities, and he does a lot of charity work. For instance, for every $13 CD he sells during performances Saturday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and Sunday at the Melrose Improv in L.A., he’s giving $3 to K-9 Companions, a San Diego-based provider of guide dogs for the disabled. But he’s no wheelchair crusader.

“I’m not necessarily on a mission in comedy,” he said. “If people get a message or inspiration from what I do, I consider that a bonus. But I didn’t choose to be a comedian to wave a flag about being disabled or my Mexican heritage. I’m up there to entertain.”

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His performances bring him back to Southern California--where his professional career took off in 1989--as part of a hectic road tour to promote his first comedy album, “Not Tonight, I Have Cerebral Palsy.”

It was recorded last year on Cinco de Mayo in San Antonio and produced by Kevin Booth, best known as the producer of caustic comedian Bill Hicks’ posthumous hit album, “Rant in E Minor.”

Since 1985, Fonseca’s warm, unabashed humor has carried him from college amateur nights to a gig on the “Late Show With David Letterman.” He’s performed alongside Robin Williams on the televised “Christopher Reeve: A Celebration of Hope” and Cheech Marin at the Latino Laugh Festival, scheduled to air on Showtime sometime this year. He also made a guest appearance on “Baywatch,” which provided him with more joke fodder.

“If you didn’t see the episode, it was about me not being able to go to the beach in my wheelchair,” he said. “So I handcuffed myself to Pamela Anderson . . . and they paid me.”

He breaks into a chorus of “God Bless America.”

Not much is off-limits in his act.

Fonseca pokes fun at disabilities, Mexican grannies, O.J. Simpson, masturbation and schoolyard bullies.

“When I was growing up, I went to a special school,” he tells a crowd of laughing Texans. “The guy I hated most was Leper Bully. Leper Bully would always come up and say, ‘Hey, do you want a piece of me?’ ”

When he’s not racing from gig to gig, Fonseca writes comedy and brainstorms TV sitcom scripts with his wife, Debbie, in Colorado Springs, where they live with her two sons. He also has a 4-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, and he and Debbie are expecting their first child in September.

“We try to spend time together,” Debbie Fonseca said of her husband’s busy touring schedule. “Actually, I’m a very independent person, so it doesn’t really get to me. Once the baby’s born, I’ll probably be singing a different tune, but for now it’s OK.”

* Comedian Chris Fonseca performs Saturday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $8-$10. (949) 496-8930.