Carrot Top a hit at UM

It’s not a bad idea to be funny-looking if you’re a comedian, but it’s bad if your looks are the funniest thing about your act.

Fortunately, comedian Carrot Top brought more than just his trademark orange Afro and his “I’m-so-ugly” shtick to the University of Maine in Orono Tuesday evening.

Kicked off with special effects that had nothing to do with comedy and everything to do with showmanship — laser beams, clouds of smoke, loud rock music — the show played to a wildly enthusiastic audience in the Maine Center for the Arts.

Even the comedian seemed overwhelmed by the response. “You guys are so good!” he said with amazement several times during the show.

Carrot Top’s gags are visual, based on props stored onstage in a sprawling collection of trunks. One by one, his handmade “inventions” are pulled out and turned into jokes. The best ones are the simplest, witty handicrafts of an overactive imagination.

Like, for example, the seat belt substitute Carrot Top invented: a rubber “Mom’s arm” that clips onto the shirt of your front-seat passenger.

Or the bong with a lazy Susan attached for pot smokers craving snacks.

Or the tiny, doll-sized suitcases he pretended to bring to the line at an airport check-in desk, huffily pushing them forward on the floor with his feet as if they were too hefty to pick up.

“I’m trying to give you guys ideas,” Carrot Top said, suggesting that everyday life can be made more entertaining. “Here’s a good one: Find a crowded grocery store, go to a closed register and yell `I can help somebody over here!”‘

Some of the prop jokes were lost to squinters in the balcony. Carrot Top has been criticized for his prop-dependence, and seems to try to compensate with weak attempts at political and local humor.

There were lame jokes about the lack of parking on campus, and party schools where “they don’t hand you a diploma, they just stamp your hand.” But there was almost nothing the audience didn’t laugh at, including Tom from Biddeford, chosen to come onstage and chug a beer.

Grabbing wigs and hats, the comedian lastly unleashed a dizzying array of rock star impersonations, prancing and strutting as everyone from Elton John to Alanis Morrisette.

Entertaining because of his crazed energy, the finale was nonetheless the one time the audience might have felt neglected, as the wild man onstage fulfilled his own private rock ‘n’ roll fantasy.

Born Scott Thompson in Cocoa Beach, Fla., the son of a NASA engineer, Carrot Top, 31, started doing stand-up comedy more than 10 years ago. He does more than 200 shows a year on the college circuit.

His first film, “Chairman of the Board,” was released to harsh reviews this year.