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Minnesota's local comedy scene was born 25 years ago in the unlikeliest of places, a tiny bar in a labor-union building on Central Avenue in southeast Minneapolis called Mickey Finn's. Its 4-foot-square stage, with a milk-bottle crate as the step, became the launching pad that sent comedians such as Louie Anderson into the entertainment stratosphere, and others into income-producing careers that still are going strong. Five of the original Mickey Finn's comics -- Anderson, Scott Hansen, Bill Bauer, Alex Cole and Jeff Gerbino -- will reunite for a series of shows this week to commemorate that anniversary. During individual interviews and a raucous lunch at one of their favorite hangouts, Market BBQ, they reminisced about the early days, the present and what happened in between.

Jeff Gerbino, Scott Hansen, Louie Anderson, Bill Bauer and Alex Cole

Joey Mcleister

Star Tribune

In late 1977, Mickey Finn's was a busy union bar Monday through Thursday, but pretty empty on the weekends. Owner Steve Billings held a talent contest to drum up business. Jeff Gerbino, who'd recently moved to town from New York because his fiancée lived here, thought stand-up comedy might be the way for him to get a gig as a radio talk-show host.

Jeff Gerbino: I instantly ran down there when I heard what was going on and was a contest finalist. Steve came up to me and said 'Let's keep doing this.' We started up in January 1978.

The Original Stand-Up Guys, circa 1979

Steve Bell

Courtesy Of Jeff Gerbino

Bill Bauer: I was working as a paramedic when I saw a thing on television about the guy who won the contest and thought 'I'm funnier than him.' So I went down the next week.'

Scott Hansen: Bill's brother is my best friend so we went down to see Bill, and it was interesting to me, so I wrote some stuff to try. I always wanted to make people laugh. I found as a kid that I could make people forget about my size if I could joke about it first.

Alex Cole: I was already working the college circuit as a comic. When I got home from one tour, someone asked me if I'd done 'that comedy club.' I didn't know about any comedy club; I thought I was the only comic in town. So I went down to check it out.

Louie Anderson: I got there about nine months later. I did it on a dare. My friends and family came, and I did well. The next day my dad had a stroke, so I felt horrible, like I had caused it. So comedy from day one for me has always been a mixed blessing.

With a $1 cover charge and only 60 seats in the bar, making a living was tough.

SH: We didn't know what we were doing. We had no one to base ourselves on except what you saw on the 'Tonight Show.' Our big threat at the time was a one-man band called Arnie Chuckle. Steve was always threatening to bring him back.

AC: The union guys hated us. This was their bar; they just wanted to sit around and talk, and here's this bunch of young comics all full of ourselves. So we had to deal with that and try and do a show.

JG: I ran around town like a madman putting posters up. I would be begging people to come down and just do five minutes.

LA: Then we really got lucky. Rodney Dangerfield was at the Carlton Celebrity Room. I found out he liked scotch, so we brought him some Glenlivet and asked him to come to the club after his show. And, being the promoters we were, we called the press. And he came, and we all performed for him. Then he just destroyed the room. The first thing he said is, 'You play a place like this, it means you have no act.' I just talked to Rodney, and he still remembers us bringing him that scotch.

Practically overnight, Mickey Finn's became the place to go, and the founding comics' reputations spread. The cover charge increased, and so did the number of comics who wanted to take the stage.

BB: Everyone who was in the in came down there because what we were doing was very unique. It doesn't seem very groundbreaking 25 years later, but then nobody else was doing it. It was experimental. Every night was an adventure; you didn't know what was going to happen. We had 200 people in there some nights.

JG: At the end of shows I'd say `Folks, you are seeing a rare event, which is live stand-up comedy. You need to go 2,000 miles east to New York City or 3,000 miles west to Los Angeles to see something similar. That was it at the time, although there were little colonies developing around the country, not unlike how jazz perpetuated itself.

LA: Bill [who became known as Wild Bill Bauer] would go so far out on a limb that it was hard to reel the audience back. They either loved him or hated him. One night he stayed on the stage for 40 minutes. He got off, and I said 'Why were you out there so long?' He said 'I ate it for 20, so I thought the audience should eat it for 20.'

AC: It was interesting watching Louie grow. Early on, he was much like Don Rickles. He was brilliant with hecklers. He could turn a guy into a quivering bowl of Jell-O in minutes.

JG: It was a wild group of guys. There was cocaine and marijuana going on. I never went into treatment or anything -- I was too lazy to ever develop a habit.

SH: Mickey Finn's started to get really crowded. All of a sudden you had 20 to 30 people vying for the same thing that five people had a year and a half earlier. There was a lot of competition and politics going on. I didn't like the atmosphere. There was a lot of jealousies and rivalries and involvement with stuff that I didn't want to get involved with, drugs and stuff. So I left.

Hanson went on to become the Twin Cities' most prolific comedy-club owner and ran a number of clubs throughout the '80s and '90s (Comedy Gallery, Belly Laffs, Rib Tickler) in addition to running a booking agency and performing. He introduced local audiences to such comics as Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno. And then there was Roseanne.

SH: I saw Roseanne in Denver and told her she had to come to Minneapolis, so she did. Her opening act was Tom Arnold. I introduced them to each other.

Los Angeles beckoned to the others. Jeff Gerbino was the first to move in the early 1980s.

JG: I figured if I was gonna work this hard, I'd go to Los Angeles. What did I do out there? Starved. Nothing was going on. I had my only job outside comedy at that time; I worked as a temp for a defense contractor inventorying missiles. After six weeks of that, I decided I'd never work a straight job again. That got me fired up, and I went on to work cruise ships, which helped get me started on the headline circuit. [He moved back to Minnesota in 1990 to raise a family]

LA: Henny Youngman, Joan Rivers and Rodney Dangerfield had all seen me perform and said I should either go to L.A. or New York. I'd had enough cold weather in my life, so I went to L.A. and stayed with Jeff. At first, it was the most horrible place in the world. I was auditioning at the Comedy Store all the time but didn't become a regular.

JG: He got rebuffed pretty hard. He got pretty bummed out by L.A.

LA: I borrowed money from friends and started to get work at the Comedy Store. But it was hard. The day I got the call from the 'Tonight Show,' I'd just put in an application at the AM/PM mini-market. That appearance changed everything. It was surreal. Johnny Carson had me come out and take a bow after my act and shook my hand, so I was anointed. The next day I went from making barely $500 a week to $1,000 a night as a comedian. It was that fast in those days. The 'Tonight Show' made your career.

BB: I wouldn't have gone to L.A. if it wasn't for my wife. She wanted to move out there. Tom Arnold was very good to me. He didn't forget a single friend. He gave me a couple parts on 'Roseanne' that were really lucrative. Then he got me involved in punching up some scripts. Once he saw I had the formula, he made sure I had inside information to get more work. In 1990, we had a personal emergency with my son and decided to move back to Minnesota.

AC: I would go out there for months at a time. I never wanted to move my family there. But my timing was never quite right. I had a contract with ABC and was next in line to get a sitcom when the writers went on strike in 1988. So that ended, and I went back to touring. In 1998 I went out, and again there was talk of a writers' strike. Then the reality shows hit. So I got back into acting [in Twin Cities theater].

SH: I've had a lot of offers from people, but I just couldn't see moving my family out there. We moved around a lot while I was growing up, so I didn't have the friendships that a lot of kids have. I didn't want to take that away from my kids. Plus I saw what L.A. does to people.

Anderson went on to appear in movies ("Coming to America"), create a television show ("Life With Louie") host a game show ("Family Feud") write four books ("Letters From an Adult Child"The F-Word") and tour extensively. Last September, he underwent open-heart surgery, from which he made a full recovery. He is writing another book, developing television projects and working on new material out on the road. Gerbino hosted several radio shows locally and performed at clubs and at corporate events. Bauer worked on TV scripts and the club circuit, and Cole received favorable reviews in a number of Twin Cities theatrical productions. Hansen has recovered from a two-year stretch of health problems that had him confined to bed at one point. Since his gastric-bypass surgery, he has lost 225 pounds. All continue to make people laugh for a living.

JG: People ask, 'How'd you do?' I don't know. When you compare me to Louie, not so good. But I'll go toe to toe with the other 90 percent of working comics. My house is paid for, my son goes to the Minnehaha Academy and my daughter goes to Columbia. I've got 200 acres of land that's paid for. For a middle class in comedy, I'm doing all right.

SH: I decided to get out of the club business altogether about six months ago [His brother still runs a club in St. Paul]. I run the Comedy Gallery at the Hotel Sofitel once every couple months, and that's it. Comics aren't easy to work with. Now I don't have to worry about who's working at what location. I don't have to take any more calls about some comedian who was hitting on an employee, or something else. I found that if I just work with what I do as a comic, I can do better, make a better living, do a lot less work and spend more time with my family. It's all positive.

BB: Most of my income comes from stand-up; I probably work 200 days a year. I love it. There's not been one time in the last 25 years that I've thought for one second that I wanted to do something else.

AC: I've been doing a lot of theater, but I'm going back into comedy. I think they're buying the older guys again. I can't do anything else; I have no skills. I love waking up every day and looking at my calendar and seeing I have a show date.

LA: I've been touring for the past two months around the region with [Hansen]. I came back here to rediscover what I had discovered 25 years ago, which is this young, great, loving optimistic kid who loved to work and do standup. This reunion thing is part of the process of me fixing my life. I started out with these guys, and I guess all of us are still connected. We really did create comedy here; there's no doubt about that.

IF YOU GO

The Original

Stand-up Guys

Starring: Louie Anderson, Bill Bauer, Alex Cole, Jeff Gerbino, Scott Hansen.

When: 7:30 p.m. Thu., 7:30 & 9:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat.

Where: Scott Hansen's Comedy Gallery, Hotel Sofitel, 5601 W. 76th St., Bloomington.

Tickets: $25. 763-420-2213 or http//www.comedyinfo.com

Deborah Caulfield Rybak is at dcrybak@startribune.com.

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