COMEDY REVIEW : Through a Glass Lightly

IRVINE â€”  There’s really not much need to review comic Todd Glass. He’ll do it for you, from stage.

“I know my act goes up and down, but that’s OK, because I’m friendly,� he opined Tuesday at the Improv, on the opening night of his first-ever headlining week at the club. Glass was a Fountain Valley resident until a recent move to Hollywood.

Too much self-awareness can be a sign of desperation, a signal that a comic knows he’s bombing. Glass’ running commentary on his own performance, on the other hand, is part of his biggest strength: a willingness to toy with the conventions of stand-up.

After jumping abruptly from a bit on flashers to some observations on singer Tom Jones, he stopped to offer a confession: “I know I don’t have segues. My friends told me I don’t need ‘em.� To prove his point, he backtracked and redid the transition with an intentionally convoluted segue between the disparate routines.

A whimsical but slight joke about how everything at Ikea requires assembly--�I bought a pillow and they gave me a duck�--was repeated almost endlessly through the set as Glass toyed with the delivery, taking the experimentation to absurdist lengths.

“That’s what they teach you in comedy school. Moving forward (during the punch line) makes it funnier,� said Glass, who then told the duck joke while lurching forward and almost falling off the stage. “I bet it’d be really funny if I just punched someone,� he added, feigning a swing at a woman in the front row.

“This is why I love comedy,� he said a little later, striding into the audience to pinch the cheeks of a man in the crowd. “If I did that at Denny’s, you’d beat the ---- out of me.�

Glass does seem to love comedy, and his set takes on a freewheeling quality and has more tangents than a geometry textbook. He has a way with mock sincerity that recalls Steve Martin in his stand-up days. He also has a great comic’s face that he uses to full advantage--his impression of his dad smoking is turning into a signature bit.

And while comic routines on the Home Shopping Network are a dime a dozen, Glass may have the funniest: a fast-talking sales pitch about an ordinary ashtray.

True to his own estimation, though, Glass’ set does go up and down. The weak point is the unevenness of his scripted material--right now, it’s the stuff between the set routines that’s the funniest.

Too much discipline could cramp Glass’ irreverent take on the stand-up form, but a little more than he displayed Tuesday couldn’t hurt. Glass needs to find a way to transfer more of his from-the-hip inventiveness to his writing as he develops into a headliner.

Where Glass manages to find unworked comic potential in the Home Shopping Network, middle act Greg Proops succeeds in squeezing some laughs from another comedy warhorse, “Studs.� The routine was a showcase for Proops’ brand of hip condescension--and if that sounds like a put-down, it isn’t.

Male contestants “want to be extras on ‘Baywatch,’ � Proops says, and as for the women: “Some wear pumps, some wear cowboy boots, all wear ankle bracelets to denote maximum slutitude.

“Where else can you get all of the humiliation of a date without actually going on a date?�

Proops is a very funny comic whose set Tuesday only got better as it went along. A bit on Disneyland offered these variations on popular attractions--the Manson Family Treehouse, Pirates of the LAPD and It’s the Third World After All, where children from all over the world swim after your boat with packed suitcases.

Opener Don Barnhart, an engaging storyteller, rounds out a strong bill of young up-and-comers.

* Todd Glass, Greg Proops and Don Barnhart continue Friday at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. and Saturday at 8 and 10 p.m. at the Irvine Improv, 4255 Campus Drive. $10. (714) 854-5455.