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Don't Fuhgeddaboud This Guy For A Good Laugh

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By WALT BELCHER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 18, 2008

Updated:

TAMPA - Dom Irrera has been performing at Tampa's Side Splitters about as long as the club has been open. The place celebrated its 15th anniversary last year.

He says that when he comes to Tampa, he likes to stick around for a couple of extra days and hang out with the club's owner, Bobby Jewell.

"We watch sports on TV and go out to eat," he says in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "You got a lot of good restaurants there.

"I'm at a point in life where I just go on the road to places that I like," says the 60-year-old comic who made "bada-boom, bada-bing" and "fuhgeddaboudit!" part of his act long before "The Sopranos" came along.

"I'm from South Philly, where everybody talks that way," he says.

Irrera, known for his rough-and-tumble wiseguy Italian-American humor, has been doing stand-up since the early 1980s. He started in an improv group in Miami and once auditioned for "Saturday Night Live." He has been called "the comic's comic" because he has a lot of friends in the business. He's a frequent guest on the late-night talk shows.

His first big break was on Rodney Dangerfield's specials for HBO. In 1989, Irrera's HBO "One Night Stand" earned him a CableACE award for best stand-up comedy special. In 1995, he won a second ACE for hosting Showtime's "Full Frontal Comedy."

He was a writer and performer on Comedy Central's animated series "Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist." He's currently doing voices on the Saturday morning kids show "Back at the Barnyard." And he has a new series, "Supreme Court of Comedy," coming to DirecTV's Channel 101 in October.

"We did 10 episodes where I am the judge, and two comics argue a case based on things from real small-claims court," he says.

An avid sports fan, he hosted four seasons of Comedy Central's irreverent football show, "Offsides," where he conducted hilarious on-the-field interviews with football greats. He says he's working on some comedy bits for the NFL network.

"I'm kinda lazy now in that I want to take a lot of time off because it's football season," he says. "I've never gone for the money. I just do what's fun for me."

He recently put together a DVD - "Dom Irrera: Is This Thing On?" - that he is selling at www.domirrera.com.

Dom Irrera plays Side Splitters, 12938 N. Dale Mabry Highway, at 8 and 10 tonight and 6, 8 and 10 p.m. Saturday; $18 to $20; (813) 960-1197.

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