Howe Does It

He's Watching You and He Thinks You're Facinating

Story By Cynthia Barnes

You do and say the oddest things. That's what makes you funny, and why Mandel is happy to hold up a mirror and reflect your image back at you.

Mandel is the ultimate jokes-on-you instigator, a quickwit comic with a radar for human foibles and a uniquely Howie sensibility that relishes pointing them out.

Mandel doesn't have to look far for fodder. It's right in front of him every night, filling the seats of sold-out performances. Engaging the audience is central to his act, and yields a mother lode of material on the spot.

"I'm as entertained, if not more entertained, than they are," says Mandel, relaxing backstage after a recent performance at MGM's Hollywood Theater. "I don't feel like I'm up there doing a job, because I'm out there having a really good time being entertained by everybody who shows up."

"I look at it like it's this big party where I'm the center of attention and each night has a different guest list-the conversation is always different, and it makes it fun and exciting for me," he says.

Mandel likes to toss out questions and use the responses as a springboard for piercing repartee.

"Anyone here have a parrot?" he asked recently.

Silence greets him before a man answers affirmatively.

"Are you on a seven-second delay?"

Laughter.

"What's your parrot's name?"

"I have three of them."

"You're answering questions I haven't asked yet."

More laughter.

"I'll never talk to anybody or pick on anybody that doesn't talk to me first. Ever. If they open up the conversation, I'm happy to engage," Mandel says.

Las Vegas has been a regular stop for Mandel since 1981, when he opened for Diana Ross.

"You know how they say if you can make just one person laugh then you're doing your job? I literally was lucky any given night if I just made one person laugh. And that one person was usually Diana Ross. The audience had no interest in seeing me. It was a very, very hard job, and she was wonderful to me."

Those were Mandel's dues-paying days, long before he became the headliner he is now.