COMEDY

Mitch Hedberg

Comedian, writer, 30

What he’s done: Hedberg delivers trenchant one-liners in a halting, slacker drawl, prompting comparisons to Steven Wright (Hedberg on meeting with agents and producers: “You and a group of strangers get together in a room and surround fruit”). After his second appearance at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal last summer, Hedberg earned another spot on the “Late Show With David Letterman,” a spread in Time magazine (with those three magic words: “the next Seinfeld”) and a development deal with 20th Century Fox Television, where he is creating a sitcom.

Outlook for ‘99: “Los Enchiladas,” a film Hedberg wrote, directed and in which he stars, screens at the Sundance Film Festival this month. It’s a comedy about a drifter who gets a job in a Mexican chain restaurant, and Hedberg would like to see it become his sitcom vehicle. Hedberg also has a solo comedy special on Comedy Central on Tuesday. In the meantime, he continues to headline clubs across the country.

Brandon Bowlin

Comedian, actor, 30

What he’s done: As a public administration major at USC, Bowlin walked on to the football team in 1985 and eventually played on special teams and at defensive back. He also began performing stand-up in Crenshaw-area nightspots such as Mavericks Flat, but resisted mainstream comedy clubs because what he saw there were “burned-out brothers who were the same type of caricatures, doing what they thought the industry wanted.” He studied acting for a year at the London Shakespeare Studio, and back in L.A. did on-air work at KJLH-FM (102.3). Bowlin was part of the team that won a Peabody Award for news coverage during the 1992 riots. He continued to work as a comedian, warming up studio audiences at such sitcoms as “Roc” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” He has since done two one-man shows, “Out of Mind” and “Return of the Underground,” both of which display his nose for comic social commentary about racial schisms in America. Listing the things African Americans want back from the co-opting white power structure, Bowlin names soul music, the phrase “you go, girl” and O.J. Simpson. “. . . OK, wait a minute. Y’all can have him but we want the knife. Might be worth something someday.” Bowlin can be seen every Wednesday night at the Ha Ha Cafe in Studio City.

Outlook for ‘99: Bowlin just signed with the Endeavor Agency and is working with longtime show business manager-producer Bernie Brillstein of Brillstein-Grey. Another showcase of “Return of the Underground” is planned, this time at the HBO Workspace in Hollywood. “He’s just so disarmingly bright,” Brillstein says of Bowlin. “I’d like to do for him what Mike Nichols did for Whoopi [Goldberg].” Brillstein is referring to the 1984 Broadway show Nichols backed after seeing Goldberg onstage. In other words, don’t look for Bowlin on a WB sitcom any time soon.