Carrot Top’s recent headline-making weekend has brought attention to a major misconception about Las Vegas comedy that we haven’t addressed yet.

For those who followed David Letterman or Howard Stern in the 90s, the general consensus was that Carrot Top was an unfunny prop comic, making it unnecessary for people to judge his comedy firsthand.

Throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, both David Letterman and Howard Stern regularly used Carrot Top as their target of jokes.

His use of props, unique appearance, and strong Las Vegas presence made him a perfect fit for the “anti-showbiz” image presented by these influential figures of Gen-X culture. Carrot Top became synonymous with lazy and cringeworthy comedy back then.

But the reality was far from what was perceived.

Discovering Carrot Top’s Comedy

In the late 2000s, we wrote a humor column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal called “Fear and Loafing,” which involved trying out various odd jobs in the city. One of the jobs we wanted to experience was working as a personal assistant to a Las Vegas celebrity.

While most resident headliners declined or ignored our request, Carrot Top was surprisingly open to the idea.

We were invited to his home, alongside his real assistant, to start our job as his personal assistant, including tasks like getting a radio-controlled taxi for one of his prop jokes.

Before starting our temporary job, we attended one of Carrot Top’s shows.

What we witnessed surprised us.

The Comedy of Carrot Top

Carrot Top differs greatly from Gallagher. His props are not just items to smash like watermelons with a sledgehammer. They are clever jokes with setups, tags, reversals, and callbacks, designed with an early Saturday Night Live aesthetic.

Many of his props are explicit and not suitable for children, hence the age-restricted audience in his showroom.

One of the highlights of the show was a pair of Paris Hilton night-vision goggles. When he put them on, the audience erupted with laughter as he mimicked her infamous sex tape pose. The timing of the joke was spot on, reminiscent of the kind of humor that David Letterman was known for.

He also featured a “Tom Cruise Scientology Starter Kit,” complete with a tiny couch to recreate the famous Oprah moment.

Throughout the performance, Carrot Top made fun of himself, showcasing a sign with a hole cut in the center and poking his face through, humorously acknowledging people’s difficulty in recognizing him.

The laughter from the audience was genuine and heartfelt, not just polite or ironic.

While humor is subjective, those who dismiss Carrot Top after experiencing his live show likely do so out of being easily offended, rather than a distaste for kitsch.

Carrot Top deserves recognition not only for his clever jokes but for his ability to embrace the jokes made at his expense with grace. His self-awareness is what made his appearance in the end-credits photo collage of The Hangover so impactful.

If you haven’t given Carrot Top’s show a chance, it probably means you, like us, judged his act before experiencing it. Watching his performance live reveals his comedic talent to be far superior to any dismissive punchline that may have preceded it.

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