1-800-CARROT TOP:  QUIRKY COMIC CALLS HIS OWN SHOTS!

by Tom Lounges


     Scott Thompson turned to comedy as a means of coping with his
classmates.  So in truth, it was the barbed tongues of Thompson’s South
Florida classmates that ultimately unleashed upon the world, the day-glo
phenomenon now known as Carrot Top.

    “Hey, being a kid is hard enough, but try growing up as a skinny kid with
red hair and freckles,” he said. “Most redheads are the only ones in their
classroom. There are not that many redheads in the world, so we tend to stand
out. When a little kid stands out, they tend to be the one that gets picked
on and ridiculed.”

    Carrot Top’s influences range from old-school icons like the Marx
Brothers and Don Rickles to recent comics like Louie Anderson and Chris Rock.
Topping his list is George Carlin, and rightly so, since it was from Carlin
that Carrot Top first “borrowed” his material.
 
    “I was just goofy old Scott and busy chasing my marketing degree at
Florida Atlantic University at that time,” he recalled.  “I was out with my
buddies in a club that had an open mic night and they were like, ‘Dude go up
on stage and be funny like you are in class!’.   I wound up on stage telling
Carlin jokes and people were just lovin’ it. ”

    With a few more amateur nights under his belt, Thompson, began thinking
that maybe comedy would be an easy way to make a living.  A rude awakening
was in store.

    “I got up on stage at a real comedy club on night and started doing my
Carlin bit,” he said.  “The manager came up to me and asked what the hell I
was doing.  I told her that I figured doing proven material was a sure way to
get laughs.  She told me not to come back until I learned to write my own
stuff.”

    Taking up that challenge, Thompson started concocting his own original
routine and soon morphed into the free-spirited Carrot Top.

    “It was the nicest of all the names that kids used to call me,” said the
comic on how he came chose his moniker.  “But even moreso, I was looking at
it with a marketing major’s point of view.  I didn’t even have a full
routine worked out yet, but I already was visualizing all these cool t-shirts
with carrots on them and different kinds of cool logos I could use.  I was
marketing my act before I even had an act.” 

     Things were very rough going in the beginning and Thompson soon found
out that making people laugh is a lot of hard work.

     “Just as I was about to give up and go back to thinking about a
marketing job, something happened that made me stick with it,” he said.  “I
hadn't done a show in a while and I was earning a living by shucking shells
and serving drinks in a local oyster bar.  Then this couple came in and sat
at the bar.  They started telling me how much I looked like this funny guy
they had seen in a club a while back. They went on and on about how that guy
made them bust a gut. I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah...whatever!’  Before they
left, they told me that if I ever got the chance to catch his act to do it
and that his name was Carrot Top.”

    With his mind blown from that experience, Thompson picked up the pieces
of his shattered confidence and resurrected his alter ego.  “I wish I knew
how to get hold of those people,” he said.  “They have no idea that they
turned my life around.”

    Armed with a trunk full of t-shirts and a show that was equal parts –
stand-up, physical comedy and theatrics – Carrot Top hit the college campus
tour. 

    Right out of the box, the young talent was a success.  His wild hair,
goofy props, tie-dyed clothes and home-made pyrotechnics, endeared him to the
college kids. They loved his brand of self-effacing humor and the nonchalant
manner in which he delivered it.    He has performed before many different
age groups, but holds that college kids are still his very favorite audience.
 “I feel most connected with them,” he said.  “They understand me the best I
think.”

     Carrot Top was named as both the “1993 Entertainer of the Year” and the
“1993 Comedian of the Year” by the National Association of Campus
Activities.  To this day, he remains the only person to receive both honors
in the same year.  He has also been honored with The American Comedy Award
for “Best Male Stand-Up Routine.”

    “I did a lot of television for a while and some club tours, but I loved
playing the colleges,” he said.  “Most people would tell me how the college
kids would eat them alive, but I was out there killin’ ‘em.  It was great.”

     Getting packaged as a support act on tours with other comedians like
Paul Rodriguez helped the 35-year-old entertainer’s career start snowballing
and allowed him to do shows outside of the college market.  Doing mainstream
shows helped broaden his audience and eventually made him more appealing to
Hollywood.

     A few cameo appearances in a smattering of films landed Carrot Top some
bigger supporting roles (such as the wacky villain, Sylvester, in “Dennis The
Menace Strikes Again”) and eventually his own starring vehicle, “Chairman of
The Board.”

     “I loved doing ‘Chairman’,” he said, “but I was not happy with the way
it was marketed.  I think a lot of things were maybe handled wrong but it was
my very first film and I didn’t really know what I was doing.”

     That point could be argued, considering that he managed to land the sex
symbols of two generations as his co-stars in that film – Rachel Welch and
Cindy Margolis.  “Yeah, how about that!  I guess I did know what I was doing
after all,” he laughs.  “I AM a lady killer you know.  Actually, I don’t
know how they wound up being in my film, but I’m sure glad they were there.”

    The movie may have done a less than booming business at the box-office,
but like some of the biggest cult favorites in history, “Chairman of the
Board,” scored big once it went to the home video market.  It’s in good
company with other youth-minded films like “Encino Man,”  “Airheads” “Mall
Rats”  and “Empire Records,” all of which made their financial and cultural
mark only after going to video.

     There are few Twentysomethings roaming the streets of the region who
have not rented or purchased a copy of “Chairman of The Board.”   The same
is true around the nation. That film thrust the comic into the national
spotlight and made him a pop culture icon for the new millennium.  “I guess
I’m one of those guilty pleasures you always hear about,” muses Carrot
Stick, as he is called in his new series of AT&T long distance commercials. 
“That’s great by me.  Feel all the guilt you want, just keep the paychecks
coming.”

    Taking advantage of the high profile presence that his new role as the
AT&T pitchman has brought him, Carrot Juice is back on the road doing his
live schtick and packing houses.   “I love all aspects of this
[entertainment] business, but being on stage and working a living, breathing
audience is still my favorite thing in the world,” he said.  “I love the
interaction and the instant gratification that comes with the laughter.” 

    Although Carrot Top averages 250 one-nighters a year, he still reads a
lot of scripts and is actually writing a screenplay himself that he hopes to
bring to the screen soon. “It has a working title of ‘The Look’, but that
will change,” he said. 

    So as not to give away too much of the plot line which Carrot Top
confided in me, let’s summarize his new screen romp as being be another
rags-to-riches tale with a “Cinderella” twist.   “I wind up a supermodel and
the face of a new generation,” laughs Carrot Top.  The real story lays in the
unlikely means of how he gets there.

    “I don’t really know when we might get around to actually shooting the
movie,” jokes Carrot Top, “because this is the first time I’ve ever written
a screenplay so I don’t have a clue about what I’m doing.” 

    While mainstream America has yet to be fully “carrotized,” the young
comic is confident that his star is finally rising.  His daily visits to into
American living rooms on behalf of AT&T is helping to make this outrageous
offspring of a NASA researcher a much more familiar face.  

    “I don’t delude myself in thinking that I’ve ‘made it’ per se, but I
realized that I was doing well in my career the day that George Carlin
invited me backstage at one of his concerts,” he enthused.  “Here I was
sitting in his dressing room talking about comedy with one of my idols and
with the guy whose jokes I told when I first started in the business.  
George was sitting there talking to me as a peer and I was like turning to
jello inside because it was so unbelievable that I had made it to that point.”

     Helping to “keep it all real” for Scott Thompson is being able to chat
with fans of his alter ego on the official web site – www.Carrottop.com.  “I
go on the web site whenever I can to answer questions or chat or whatever,”
said the comedian.  “Keeping it real is what keeps it all happening.”

(Carrot Top performs Oct. 12 at Star Plaza in Merrillville, IN)