This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:04] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's the round table with me, Robert Bannon.

[0:09] Robert Bannon: Well, welcome to the round table, everybody. Listen, when I was 12 years old, I used to stay up to watch, well, get up early to watch Regis and Kathy Lee because I needed to see Carrot Top. And my parents for Christmas got me and my eight-year-old brother Carrot Top tickets to see him at the John Harm Center for the Arts in Englewood, New Jersey. This is like 30 years ago, Carrot Top. And I have been a fan and a super fan ever since. And your show is a little adult, Carrot Top, compared to Regis.

[0:35] Carrot Top: Yes, yes, it is.

[0:36] Robert Bannon: My mom walked out like, oh my god, I brought my eight-year-old son to the show. It was epic. We live for it to this day. Thank you so much for being here.

[0:44] Carrot Top: Oh good. Yes, thank you for all that.

[0:46] Robert Bannon: So the Luxor and being out there in Vegas.

[0:49] Carrot Top: I'd rather be in Vegas than Detroit, Michigan, where it's a foot of snow outside right now.

[0:54] Robert Bannon: Where are you at now?

[0:56] Carrot Top: Detroit.

[0:57] Robert Bannon: Oh Detroit, yeah.

[0:58] Carrot Top: Detroit got hit hard.

[0:59] Robert Bannon: It's freezing.

[1:00] Carrot Top: Yeah, I saw that. You're out there. Your Vegas run is legendary. The Luxor is legendary. When did Vegas become home?

[1:09] Carrot Top: Uh to the Luxor, that's when it became so 20 years ago.

[1:09] Robert Bannon: 20 years.

[1:14] Carrot Top: Yeah, I was playing the MGM Grand In and Out, kind of like a part-time residency. I got offered the full-time residency at Luxor, and that was 20 years ago. Crazy.

[1:25] Robert Bannon: So what is the show? How do you describe what your show has become? What is it like for 2026?

[1:30] Carrot Top: It's just a full multimedia kind of, you know, it's different because when people speak stand-up comics, you think of a comic standing there with the microphone doing our show has interaction with media. There's a lot of a big video wall behind me that has a lot of content that might be the punchline. If you see this big picture come up behind me. So it adds to there's lots of music, there's lots of props, as you said. There's lots of stand-up and storytelling. Um there's lights and there's fog and there's so it's kind of a one-man show in a sense, but it's got more production and stuff more than what people would think.

[2:13] Carrot Top: It's very energizing, there's music, there's stuff going, you know.

[2:16] Robert Bannon: Yeah, it's like a rock concert, everybody. It's like a comic rock Vegas comedy extravaganza.

[2:22] Carrot Top: Yeah, you go crazy.

[2:24] Robert Bannon: Yeah, and 90 minutes of material is not easy to do a show every night and fill it with jokes and commentary, but you're like an expert because you do a little bit of it all.

[2:33] Carrot Top: Right, I try to at least, yes.

[2:35] Robert Bannon: So is it true that your dad was a NASA engineer?

[2:39] Carrot Top: Like well, yes, yes, he was, yes.

[2:42] Robert Bannon: And that's not anywhere close to comedy.

[2:48] Carrot Top: Yeah, no, it's a little furthest from it, in fact. It was the furthest thing from it. In fact, my brother and his wife were at the show last night, and it was fun having my brother because my brother, of course, was there to see my life. And my brother went to the Air Force Academy and became an F-16 fighter jet pilot. So my dad working in NASA, my brother working in Air Force. You know, it's such a strange, and there's me, the black sheep of the family. So yeah, it was an interesting family.

[3:17] Robert Bannon: When did you decide to be a comedian? Like when, who, why comedy? What happened?

[3:21] Carrot Top: I don't, you know, I don't even know. I just I always thought it was kind of fun and funny, and not knowing I could be the one, you know, to do it. I just thought that's I think that's so funny. I love watching comedy and it made me laugh and feel good. And so I just kind of by accident started trying to be a comedian, and I tried a few things and it was fun, and then I just kept kind of pursuing and of course changing how I come up with an idea.

[3:49] Carrot Top: And that's when slowly the props came into play. And that's when I started kind of guessing, I think I'm really gonna do this. I'm gonna actually go and be a comedian. And so, but it was a lot of failure too. You know, I had some, the beginning, you know, wasn't easy because I didn't know what I was doing. I still don't know what I'm doing, but you know, I mean, I've got trying to figure out what it is that I'm gonna do on the stage, what's gonna be my repertoire, what's gonna be my topic. What am I gonna, am I gonna be political? Am I gonna be observational? Am I gonna be relationships?

[4:19] Carrot Top: Yeah, so there's a lot of things that to think about how you're gonna, that's why I just I started doing the props, and then with the props, I started that's very observational and very creating like inventions almost. And then as the show progressed over the years, now it was now there's more storytelling and live stories and stand-up, you know, just traditional storytelling stand-up. So it's nice because a whole bunch of a combination of things.

[4:46] Carrot Top: I love it. I've been a fan, like I said, for all of these years, and I love hearing about your story. I think being an engineer and being and doing what you do are very similar because you've built things, you put things together, you observe the world. Your style and the personality and the hair, I didn't realize the Camp Carrot Top, I thought that was a stage name for showbiz.

[5:06] Carrot Top: That came like you were a kid when you got that nickname.

[5:09] Carrot Top: Yeah, I think I was a kid, yeah. And it kind of just stuck with me. And then I kind of, you know, I was surfing and I grew my hair long, and I thought, well, maybe it'll be kind of a good look, you know, but long hair and a lot of red, you know, Carrot Top.

[5:23] Robert Bannon: And now you're one of the most successful famous comedians in the entire world. So I guess it worked out pretty well. But as you said, as you said early on, do you think of your career as a big break? Was it Carson? Was it Star Search? Was there a moment?

[5:40] Carrot Top: I think there's a combination of things because I didn't get I wasn't one of those guys that got on like a sitcom, you know, and it made me overnight or Saturday Night Live. I did a whole bunch of different things. So I would do Regis, like you said, Regis and Kathy Lee, and then I would do The Tonight Show, and then I would do MTV half hour comedy, as you know, spring breaks MTV thing, and then do Evening at the Improv, and then do a special with Jonathan Winters.

[6:05] Carrot Top: So it was always a lot of things. And I'm, you know, I think it started to be legit. I think, I mean, you know, when I was doing like the Regis or The Tonight Show, because it's you know, it's on NBC. It's like I'm on a network, I'm doing I'm on a show that you know, who you pick a star, you know, Tom Selleck, I'm on the same show with Tom Selleck. So it was like real, you know, and so that's what started to feel like I think I'm actually doing this. I'm a comic, I'm being successful, you know.

[6:35] Carrot Top: I tell my mom I'm on I'm on I'm in a movie with Don Rickles. It's like what? I'm like, yeah. So it was, you know, surreal in a sense. And this little kid in Richville Park, New Jersey definitely took notice, and that's what is exciting is that there must be people that are new generation of comics or people that you meet that have been watching you following your career, you've inspired them to be the next generation.

[6:56] Carrot Top: Yes, I hope so. I do get a lot of young people that say that every day, like I've been watching you since I was a kid. I said, I've been watching me since I was a kid.

[7:05] Robert Bannon: Yeah. So the props. How often does the show change?

[7:09] Carrot Top: How often do you come up with an idea for a new everything?

[7:12] Carrot Top: Yeah, because it's just so layered and integrated, that a lot of times there'll be a new prop, or sometimes there'll be a new stand-up, or sometimes there's a new story, or sometimes there's both. You know, I could come up with a prop and a story and I think it just depends on how creative my brain's going. But the show changes a lot. There's a lot of it evolves of current event things, like you know, whatever happens to be in town, you know, Dolly Parton is coming. So we have a Dolly Parton joke, and the you know, the rodeo was in town. We had a bunch of rodeo things.

[7:44] Carrot Top: So no matter what happens in town or what happens in the world, you just kind of evolve into, you know, now we're picking on the Super Bowl now. So that's gonna be fun. We're picking on certain teams and they get all riled up.

[7:57] Carrot Top: So yeah. But it always changes. That's the important thing. Yeah, keep it changing. If you've been to Vegas last year or two years ago and you've seen the show, you got to come back and see it again because there's gonna be new parts of it that you have never seen before. Where now in my head, there's like a Carrot Top warehouse full of like doll heads and plastic poop and the stick that holds the two pieces together. Where are the props? How do you organize them? Do you have a list of all of them? What do you do? Part of that is yes, part we do have a warehouse, it's full of stuff, literally. It's all the ones, it's like the resting home for all the props that used to be employed. But they're all in a room and they're all there, and it's weird.

Some of them are kind of numbered, some just a mess. So just last week I was trying to find something and I just gave up. I could not find, no, I know it was in there, but I couldn't find it, the certain prop. So we just made a new one. But um, there are a lot of things in there. I walk back in there, it's just kind of like it's memory lane. Like, oh my god, I remember that when that was in the show. Remember this one that was so funny? Um, but you know, things come and go out of the show, but I keep every one of them. So yeah.

[9:07] Robert Bannon: And I hear that I've seen on your social media your digs at the Luxor are pretty swanky, like it's like a Carrot Top apartment back there.

[9:14] Carrot Top: Yeah, it's a cool direct. My friends that come back and say my dressing room is better than my show. Um because it's just so cool. It's just a great little like a dorm room in a sense, meets, yeah, it's fun, it's fun. It's a little den. Do the props ever bomb? Do you ever have ideas that bomb?

[9:29] Carrot Top: Oh yeah, every comic guest thing. That was part of being a pro, that's part of being in the job, yeah. I mean, not as much now because I think I kind of figure out before I even attempt to do something I know that's gonna be somewhat funny. Um, but yeah, I've had some over the years that tanked it, yeah. They're in the warehouse just collecting dust. They never made. And are there other things that you don't take out that are kind of like these are signatures?

[9:56] Carrot Top: Sometimes I keep some of the carrot classics in there and just they're just there for good, you know. It's like doing a hit for you know the Stones. You know, you gotta have a couple hits in there. And so I keep some of those in there, and then I interchange new ones, and sometimes I'll bring back a story that I haven't done in a while. So in this crazy world that we live in, it's crazy out here in these streets for a lot of people. How important is it that people come, they go on vacation, they save their money, they fly across the world. It's the world, and they give their money up and they forget their stress for a little while. That's gotta be the great joy of the gig.

[10:34] Carrot Top: Absolutely. But the best joy of the whole thing is doing the show and seeing the people smiling and having fun and escaping their life. Uh and I, you know, I get a lot of fan mail and I get letters all the time that shock me that you know, people are coming to the show as maybe their last week on earth to live. Yeah, they're coming to the show. You know, you hear all these things, and uh so every show you're up there, you gotta think that in your head. You know, there's people out there that are suffering, these people that they've gone through some crazy enough, and then they want to have fun. And it's my job to have that night of fun regardless.

[11:09] Robert Bannon: Yeah. Well, CarrotTop.com is where you can get tickets. Go to the Luxor and get your tickets. Make sure you see the show. He's got a show tonight. He's got a show every day. He's there. He's gonna be there.

[11:17] Carrot Top: I'm there.

[11:18] Robert Bannon: So when people come, who is the show for? Do you want it to be a date night? Do you want it to be a bachelor party, bachelorette?

[11:24] Carrot Top: No, who's it's uh well, what I want it to be for, I wouldn't be able to have to choose that. What it is is every, it's from eight, I wouldn't say eight to eighty. My demographics eight to eighty. But the people that come to my show, I would say 16 to 80. And it can be bachelor parties, it can be bachelorette parties, it could be wedding parties, um, bar mitzvahs, it could be a bunch of people just coming together, neighbors, you know, friends of you know, business group friends. A lot of times there's a when they have like the concrete convention in town, there'll be a lot of dudes, you know, with their plaids, and I'm like, Oh, you guys all work together kind of thing. So yeah, you kind of never end this couples, you know, single people.

It's everybody, it really is. And that's kind of what is fun too, because you look out there every night is it's an eclectic group of people that aren't really some that don't really know each other. You know, it's not like playing a college when I used to do colleges where the whole audience knew each other, you know, the whole crowd or doing a private party for a company with the whole family, the whole crowd knows each other. And it's more fun to have it where no one knows each other, it's just a bunch of miscellaneous people from miscellaneous states all across the world.

[12:33] Robert Bannon: Yeah. I love it. Do you ever miss being on the road? I know on your webs some people talk about touring again, or do you gonna tour again? Or do you like it?

[12:39] Carrot Top: We're gonna tour a bit less next year. It's just tough for us because the show is like you said, it's every night, and so there's not a lot of chances to get out of Vegas and go on the road. So I picked the gym stuff.

[12:54] Robert Bannon: I also love your TV and movie work and all of the acting that you've gotten to done. Is that something you hope to do more of too? I know you're there, you're Vegas-ing it up, but we can sneak you out for some guest spots.

[13:05] Carrot Top: Absolutely. I love doing TV and movies, and yeah, for sure. We're just trying to get back onto that Hacks show because Hacks is filming out here, and we're trying to get a cameo on that and do a little walk-on. But um, yeah, it'd be fun. I love it.

[13:19] Robert Bannon: I think you need to. There is nothing more Vegas than Carrot Top, and you need to be on Hacks. And in my head, I think, you know, people have joked about you in my head, your day off. I think you're at the gym, I think you take a nap. I think your gym routine, though, in my head is just you lifting the crates and the back or like what all of your props. I mean, that's a workout and of itself. When did the gym, why is the gym so important to you?

[13:44] Carrot Top: You're ripped Carrot Top, you're in shape.

[13:46] Carrot Top: I like being in shape, and I think if I but I always have been, you know, ever since I was a kid, I was a swimmer, so I've always been in athletics, so I try to stay, you know, in shape. I don't try to get too crazy, but I go up in the morning and I run in the park, and then I go have a little lunch, and then I go to the gym, and then I go home and take a little power nap, and then I go to work. So that's pretty much every day, you know.

[14:11] Robert Bannon: So you're not at the Luxor All-You-Can-Eat buffet eating crap.

[14:15] Carrot Top: No, no.

[14:16] Robert Bannon: No. That's for you when you go to Vegas, everybody watching and listening.

[14:21] Carrot Top: Yeah, yeah. You do that. You do that. You'll stay in shape to do the show.

[14:26] Robert Bannon: Right, right, right, right. Can I say, give you a really big thank you? It means a real big honor for me to have you here. I grew up watching you as many people now apparently say. And um, and it means so much. And I the words that you've said and the jokes that you've given and the laughs you've given us have helped us through a lot of dark, scary times. And I hope you remember, I hope you remember it really means a lot to all of us that the work that you do and the time you spend on stage has meant a lot to us out here. So thank you.

[14:50] Carrot Top: You're very welcome. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate the love that you get for me.

[14:54] Robert Bannon: Please, look, I'm coming to take my husband. We're gonna take a weekend in Vegas. We're gonna leave. I'm gonna have to find Carrot Top. I'm gonna have to I can't even give you a p chocolate or a I'll give you a kale salad and a hug.

[15:08] Carrot Top: I like everything.

[15:09] Robert Bannon: I like everything.

[15:10] Carrot Top: Okay, done. I like chocolate.

[15:13] Robert Bannon: That's what we're gonna do. Thank you so much. Appreciate you very much. Let me know when you come in town.

[15:18] Carrot Top: You got it.

[15:19] Robert Bannon: We'll got it. Carrot Top, everybody. He's at the Luxor. It's in a great place on the strip. You find the pyramid, you'll find Carrot Top right there. You gotta make sure you check it out, get your tickets and come see him when you visit. He'll be there forever. I mean, you have a like a left residency forever.

[15:31] Carrot Top: I hope so.

[15:32] Carrot Top: Yeah, not going anywhere.

[15:33] Robert Bannon: He's not going anywhere. Thank you so much.