Las Vegas Weekly

July 20, 2010 · 11:31 AM

Louie Anderson’s busy life with new comedy club and boot camp

By Robin Leach

Louie Anderson.

Photo: Courtesy

From July 14 through Aug. 4, Robin Leach will be relaxing under the Tuscan sun on his annual vacation and keeping his eyes on what’s happening in Las Vegas from Italy. Meantime, a kindly crew of Las Vegas celebrities and VIPs has agreed to write guest columns for Vegas DeLuxe.

By Louie Anderson, guest columnist

Hi All,

It’s Louie Anderson, and I’ve got exciting news to share. While Robin is away in Italy for some well-deserved R&R, I’m filling in for him and getting you all up to speed on the new and exciting things going on in my life.

After nearly five years in Las Vegas, I’m ready to start a new chapter in my life. I remember my first trip to Vegas in ’84 when I opened the show at The Comedy Store at The Dunes Hotel with Jim Carrey, Sam Kinison, Bob Saget and Roseanne Barr. Tickets were just $15 for all-you-can-laugh.

Well, of course we all thought we were good, but we didn’t know we would all have tremendous success and great memories to look back at now. Las Vegas has changed, so have I, and so have all those people, but one thing remains the same: People still need to laugh.

I’ve noticed this especially in the past few weeks when my brother unexpectedly had congestive heart failure and had to be rushed to a hospital. Heart disease runs in my family -- too much butter and not enough exercise. He was rushed to a hospital but was too weak for open-heart surgery, so after a few days of great care at Regions Hospital in Minnesota (they have a great heart unit there), he was strong enough to undergo surgery.

Coincidentally, my higher power had scheduled me to do a show in Minnesota that weekend, so I flew all night and got to the hospital just a few hours after he came out of surgery. He looked helpless with tubes everywhere, and I just sat quietly while he rested. After a few hours, he woke up but couldn’t talk because of the tubes. As he struggled to communicate, I got a clipboard and paper and went through the alphabet with him. He started by spelling out H-O-W-S Y-O-U-R, and I tried to guess the rest. “How’s my health? Good.” “How’s my life? Great.” And finally as he got more and more frustrated, he pointed to S, and he spelled out “How’s your show?”

It was one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said. Here’s my brother, laying in a hospital bed after triple-bypass surgery, wondering about my show. What a great family! I told him it was great and how happy I am that after 25-plus years, I’m still excited to be opening a new show in Vegas.

I am really excited about having my own showroom. I met with the Palace Station reps, Judy Alberti and her great team, along with Joe Sanfelippo of Bonkerz fame. We spent several hours talking about the design ideas they had and going over plans for the showroom, inside and out. Being a part of the Station Casinos family is huge. They are very supportive of my show in many ways. We have exciting plans for holiday shows, special guests, other day performances and late-night shows, too.

I’m calling in favors from all my friends to come and visit me at the Louie Anderson Showroom at Palace Station starting Sept. 7. We recently had a contest to see what the name of the show will be, and the winning name was Louie LOL. It’s a completely family-friendly show, and I’m very excited to get started. The only thing is that Sept. 7 is right around the corner, and with so much going on, I wonder if I will have the time to finish it all. Everyone keeps assuring me that we will have time to get it all done. You know Vegas loves a deadline: Just look at CityCenter.

Another one of my exciting endeavors is with fellow comedian Kyle Cease. Kyle and I started a Stand-Up Boot Camp for comics to help them take their game to the next level, and it’s been very successful. We travel to different cities and hold boot camps for aspiring comics. I’m really looking forward to Kyle and I bringing Stand-Up Boot Camp to L.A. on Aug. 4-8 at the legendary Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip. We have great guests, including Russell Peters, Kevin Nealon and the legendary Bob Zmuda, creator of Comic Relief and co-writer/dear friend of Andy Kaufman, along with many other stars.

I love having the opportunity to introduce some of the comics that have been attending Stand-Up Boot Camp and will be featuring many of them at the new Louie Anderson Showroom. I’ve already sent several of their tapes around to industry big wigs because these are stars in the making. Go to StandUpBootCamp.com if you want to see some of them or for more info on how you can participate. We’re also excited that we will be able to have a Stand-Up Boot Camp right here in Las Vegas at Palace Station.

I’m also getting ready to shoot Louie Anderson Presents: A Comedy Special for Showtime, which will air later this year. We will be shooting at the California Theater of the Performing Arts in San Bernardino; I will be introducing future comedy stars. I’m excited about this opportunity because more than 20 years ago, Rodney Dangerfield introduced Bob Saget, Rita Rudner, Sam Kinison, me and many others in Rodney Dangerfield: Young Comedians Special. I feel like my life is coming full circle as I now have the chance to do for upcoming comedians what Rodney once did for me.

OK, got to go. I’m heading out of town for another Stand-Up Boot Camp and my own show this weekend, then off to L.A. for The Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson. The coolest thing about my career is that I’m still going strong and working all the time. I have a chance to not only make people laugh, but also the amazing opportunity to influence comedians of the future who will make people laugh for years to come, and that is the most exciting thing in the world to me.

Love, Life, Laugh,

Louie Anderson

Tomorrow’s guests columnists are Wolfgang Puck chefs Eric Klein and Dustin Lewandowski and Executive Monkeys producer Emily Jillette.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.

Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter at Twitter.com/vegasdeluxe.

Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.

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