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Bob Zany is one of five stand-up comics who will be featured inthe Bob & Tom All-Stars Comedy Tour.
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Zany makes 'big time' in Toledo

Handout not Blade photo

Zany makes 'big time' in Toledo

Veteran comedian Bob Zany has played Toledo more than once in the past, but the venue has always been a comedy club that held a few hundred people at most. Tomorrow night he'll be back in town, but the hall this time will be a bit larger - the 2,400-seat Stranahan Theater.

"Yeah, the Stranahan, I've made the big-time now, baby," Zany said earlier this week in a telephone interview from his home in California. "You know what that means, don't you? That means I'm funnier now. At least I think that's what it means."

Zany is one of five stand-up comics who will be featured in the "Bob & Tom Comedy All-Stars Tour," which is making a Midwest swing over the next few weeks. All of the comedians are regular guests on the nationally syndicated Bob & Tom radio show in Indianapolis. After the stop tomorrow night in Toledo, the tour will be in Lima Saturday night, appearing at the Lima Civic Center.

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The 45-year-old Zany, whose real name is Robert Tetreault, has been doing stand-up comedy for close to 25 years. His first stage appearance was on the infamously bizarre 1970s TV program The Gong Show, when he was just 15 years old.

Halfway through his "routine," which consisted of the nervous youngster reading jokes from a sheet of paper, he was dragged off the stage by a man wearing a nun's outfit and carrying a net. "But I wasn't gonged," Zany pointed out. "If you got gonged, you didn't get paid anything, and I made like $128 for that."

When he was 19, Zany began performing and emceeing at a club in Pasadena, where his shows included young up-and-comers such as Gary Shandling, Yakov Smirnoff, and Kevin Nealon. Since then, he's been performing at clubs across the country. He's also hosted several radio programs, had bit parts in a handful of movies and TV shows, and he's been helping host the overnight segment of the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon for a number of years. He's scheduled to do it again this year, teaming up with Tom Bergeron, host of TV's Dancing With the Stars.

Last year, Zany appeared in the early rounds of the TV comedy competition Last Comic Standing. He was more experienced than many of the competitors - or as he puts it, "They have their dreams, and I have my mortgage." He didn't make it past the early rounds.

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This is his 10th year of doing a weekly call-in humor segment called "The Zany Report" for the Bob & Tom Show, which is heard weekday mornings in Toledo on WIOT-FM (104.7).

Joining Zany in his Toledo appearance are fellow comics Ralph Harris, Tommy Johnagin, Nick Griffin, and Donnie Baker. The show will be hosted by Kristi Lee, a cast member of the Bob & Tom Show.

"Seeing a bunch of headliners in one place for one price is a pretty good deal," Zany said. "I'd definitely go if I were you."

The "Bob & Tom Comedy All-Stars Tour" will appear tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at the Stranahan Theater, 4645 Heatherdowns Blvd. Tickets are $26.50 from the box office, 419-381-8851, or Ticketmaster, 419-474-1333 or www.Ticketmaster.com.

First Published January 24, 2008, 12:49 p.m.

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Bob Zany is one of five stand-up comics who will be featured inthe Bob & Tom All-Stars Comedy Tour.  (Handout not Blade photo)
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