Less than a minute into Bert Kreischer’s latest , he rips his shirt off.
The move is met with thunderous applause in Omaha’s Orpheum Theater, where he shot the hour that’s dropping globally March 14 — though you get the sense that that’s the response wherever Kreischer goes. After all, the married dad of two has been performing bare-chested for as long as he can remember. It’s not so much a gimmick, he says, as it is the way he feels most at ease. “It’s so my comfort zone,” he explains over the phone.
Kreischer’s new set, which he’s titled “Razzle Dazzle,” has him making hay of such subjects as bodily emissions, being bullied by his teen daughters, Georgia and Ila, and the explosive end to his family’s escape room outing.
The Jax-produced special, his third for , is directed by Jeff Tomsic and executive produced by Kreischer, along with his wife LeeAnn, who also features prominently in his material, Tony Hernandez, John Skidmore and Judi Marmel.
He talked at length (and shirtless) about his daughters’ input as well as his comedy aspirations and his experiences in Hollywood.
You’re about to release your fifth special. What was important to you with this set?
I wanted to give my girls a bit of a voice. I don’t know if I totally accomplished it, but that’s what I wanted to do.
It’s funny, I’d started writing the material in January 2020 and then they grew up so much during the pandemic. At first, I couldn’t figure out why I was running into such a roadblock with the hour. But what had happened was by the time I recorded it, Georgia was in college and Ila was driving. They’d matured so much. And so I felt like I needed to find ways to show that and to show the fact that they bully me now.
Your whole family features prominently in the hour, and I’m curious to what extent they have input, andwhat those conversations were like before you go out on stage?
Fucking awkward.
(.)
How so?
Well, Ila Grace has become hyper-aware of making sure she’s represented the way she wants to be represented. I made that kid famous by accident. I didn’t think it through, and so she definitely had final edit of that special and the jokes.
But they were still told on stage, yes?
Yes. I said, “Let me tell ’em, if you don’t like ’em, we’ll take them out [of the special].” In the end, if I’m not mistaken, she only took out one. And with that one, she went, “That’s a secret.” She’s always had the ability to say that to me. I mean, some of the funniest things she’s ever said, about her growing up, she was cool enough to let me talk about.
Like, her period. But there were other parts of her growing up that she wasn’t comfortable with and she’d say to me, “This doesn’t go on stage.” I remember one time going, “I’ll give you $1,000. This is the funniest thing anyone’s ever said in the fucking world.” I mean, there was a joke in the special that I pulled out that I offered her $10,000 for. I was like, “I’ll give you $10,000. It’s so funny, baby.” And she goes, “Nah, I don’t like it.”
What about your older daughter?
Georgia is my Jiminy Cricket. And I didn’t even realize it until she left for college. Suddenly, I was having a hard time coming up with material and I kept being like, “Why am I stumped?” And what it was was that Georgia and I would watch [my wife] LeeAnn and Ila interact with us, and Georgia would highlight the stuff that was really, really funny.
And when Georgia knew it was funny, then I knew it was funny.
She’s your barometer?
Yes. I was stumped one night on stage, and Georgia called me randomly and I answered the call from stage, and the place went nuts. She goes, “Dad, did you talk about the escape room?” Then she told the story on stage.
The one that you tell in the special, I assume?
Yeah. I did the escape room with her and I had actually tried [talking about] it on stage, but I was so far off from what really happened and why it was funny. Georgia was just like, “We only brought you there to watch Papa loose his shit and you have a panic attack, Dad.
” And I was like, “Oh that’s right.” She was like, “Don’t you remember, Papa threw Nana into a steamer trunk? You were probably too busy shitting your pants.” And the place is falling apart, just crying laughing listening to her say this stuff. Then she goes, “Mom solved the whole thing and then that old lady scared the shit outta Papa,” and the place just explodes. I literally said to someone after, “Grab a recording of that, that’s how I write this story.”
