In 2006, Alonzo Bodden was the unknown winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing, and here is what he had to say about the aftermath of that (this is all before he came back in 2007 to be a judge on the show).
Ant, who never came close to winning on the second or third editions of LCS, somehow seemed to get more TV work than Bodden. What's that about?
"I guess it's because Ant's more of a Hollywood guy. Ant will talk s--t. Ant will stir up trouble, whereas I won't. Ant will play the game. He used the show to play a bitchy gay guy, and then VH1 hired him to play a bitchy gay guy (for Celebrity Fit Club and other programs). Ant can change his level of gay. The most fascinating thing in the world. He can be less gay and more gay."
What should viewers make of LCS? "There's no way viewers know this, but how do I put it? Creative editing. What they'll do is take segments and put them together to make it look like an argument was going on, or they'll make someone look like they had an attitude. Like they made Tammy (Pescatelli) look like a bitch. She wasn't. They just caught her when she was mad." Also: "It's kind of like a regular election. It's about popularity."
I'd opened for Bodden and Gary Gulman when they were both competing in 2004. Here's Bodden's take on Gulman: "You know what's funny about Gary, and they don't show that on TV, but Gary is smart. He's like a scholar. We were talking about dick jokes and he quoted Shakespeare. This guy is too smart to be a comic! And he is tall."
Winning LCS also has privileges such as multiple appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. What's that like? "I did my third one last month. You learn that the crowd is really hot. They're going to be with you right from the start so you just go out and rock it, right from the start. When I do a Tonight Show, I get, 'I can't believe they let you say that.'" In his first appearance, for instance, Bodden talked openly about ogling female gymnasts. "The most fun on the first show was making Tom Arnold near fall out of his seat laughing."
