6-9 ''It's not a skit, I wish I had written one''

This Saturday I was the 'warmup' comic for a local TV show involving the MD Lottery. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a 'warmup' comic does, my job was to get the crowd excited so when they start taping the actual show there is some energy coming from the studio audience. When I was asked to do this I told them that they needed to define what type of comedy I would need to do. They told me it would be a rated PG show, but that they didn't want me doing 'jokes'. They wanted me in the audience, talking to them. So I took the gig.

No problem.

I received an actual contract describing what was expected of me. I was to do ½ hour before taping (1:30-2:00), then I would work the breaks while they changed the sets.

Again, no problem.

I bought stuff to give away (I spent $18.90 at the dollar store) and the people there provided me with a couple hundred scratch-offs along with an assistant to help me out.

Can this get any easier?

The first half hour was a blast. Little did I know that each 'set change' would take a minimum of 30 minutes. However, the taping itself would only take 5-10 minutes per segment. So with 7 different segments being taped from 1:30 to 5:15 there was about 3 HOURS left of me talking to a room full of regular lottery players.

Let me define 'regular lottery players'. When you go to 7-11 to get a Vitamin Water there is a line of people standing at the pink register separated from the regular register. Without passing judgment on them, these were the people that occupied the 300 or so seats in the Kay Theater.

By the end of this show I was literally walking up to people saying, ''What's your name? Nice. Here's a scratch off.''

The guy who was in charge kept coming up to me saying, ''Why don't you get up and do your skit?'' The problem is that the audience was riddled with kids. Even though I can do my set without actually swearing, I can't do it without some material that's inappropriate for children. There were at least 20 kids there. Plus, I knew it wouldn't work. I eventually would do my 'skit'. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out that I better get down and give out some more scratch-offs.

During the last segment they gave away A MILLION DOLLARS, but I was so tired I didn't bother to stay and find out who won. However, it was down to only two people when I left, one of whom did not speak English. I hope he won. It was hilarious, but I was too drained to fully appreciate it.

NEXT>