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He's not fat. He's fluffy.

That's not only a description of Gabriel Iglesias. It's his most famous joke.

The comedian, whose website is fluffyguy.com, makes a lot of jokes about his fluffiness. And those jokes have taken him all over the world, through several Comedy Central specials and now to his own show on the cable network.

Iglesias' new show and his new tour, which comes to Omaha on Saturday, shares the same name: "Stand-Up Revolution." They also follow the same premise: Iglesias and his friends onstage telling their best jokes.

The Fluffy Guy called us from the back of his tour bus as it passed through Odessa, Texas, to talk about the show, the tour and chocolate cake.

Q. When did you know you wanted to be a comedian?

A. I always wanted to be a comedian since as far as I remember. It was the first time I saw stand-up comedy on TV. I liked the attention and how people were going crazy for Eddie Murphy. I made up my mind at 8 or 9 years old.

A week after I saw that, I got in a school talent show and I went up there and did impressions. They asked me to come back the following year. Then I hit puberty and I became real secluded.

Eventually, I joined the speech team. That's what helped me really get my chops going. The first time I did stand up was April 10, 1997.

Q. I guess you remember it really well.

A. Oh, very well. I did really, really well. I think if it wouldn't have been bad, I don't know if I would have ever done it again.

Every place I'd go, I'd meet two or three new comics. Then I'd meet more people and more people. I just keep riding that snowball.

Q. I've heard comedians can be really supportive or really competitive. What has it been like for you?

A. I've heard both sides. It all depends on how you started off. As soon as I had the ability to headline, I took whoever I wanted with me. I didn't let the comedy clubs and venues decide. I just took a bunch of friends on the road with me. If you have your friends, it's not going to be a bad situation. It's like, "Oh, yeah! Road trip!" It's really fun.

Q. Who are some of your favorite comedians?

A. Robin Williams, Paul Rodriguez. I really like Chris Rock and Lewis Black. I like comics that don't do the same things that I do.

I don't get political. I don't like doing that in my show because it makes the crowd weird. I'll watch a Bill Maher or Dennis Miller — I do both sides — and just laugh. I really enjoy political humor because it's not what I do.

Q. Tell me a little bit about your show.

A. The show is "Stand-Up Revolution." It's basically the same thing as me going on the road. I host it every week. I basically grabbed a bunch of friends that I knew. I thought it was going to be a one-shot deal, but the network is looking to pick it up again.

I wanted to make sure that if I did a show, it was something people were comfortable or familiar with. If you're doing a scripted show, you gotta really work twice as hard to make sure they're gonna like it and go for it. We knock out that TV show in one weekend.

Q. So do you still get chocolate cakes brought to you all the time?

A. More than you know. I tell people during the show, "Imagine it's your birthday every single day since 1998" — which is when I told that joke for the first time — "and you have three friends that all decide to make you a cake."

On average how many cakes I get per week? Twenty to 30 cakes per week.

I even tell people, 'I should have asked for insulin.' (Laughs) It's a lot of cake. And I try to take at least pictures of it and post it on my website. It is so much.

Of all the things I could have asked for. Who knew?

Q. Your show is usually pretty clean. Is that harder to do?

A. Definitely. The cleaner your show, the more broad you're able to make it. I get a lot of people that bring families. I had three 7-year-olds in the crowd yesterday.

It gets a little challenging. There are certain stories that I like to tell that aren't kid-friendly. But it's not the whole show. I might use the "F-word" twice.

Q. Do you write a lot of new material?

A. Constantly. I'm constantly changing it up. I'm telling more stories about the places that I've been, like performing in the Middle East, Australia, the U.K. and some of the other places in Europe.

Q. When you perform there, do the jokes translate?

A. You have to make sure that some of the (wording) is translated correctly, especially in Australia. I had to learn about certain phrases. There's subtle little changes, but you're able to make the changes and act accordingly. Generally, the same thing that works in California works in Sydney, London or Toronto.

Q. So will you do some familiar material or do you do a lot of new jokes?

A. What I do at the shows now is find a happy medium. I'll give the audience a new one hour. Then if anyone wants to hear old stuff, I have them yell it out. I take another hour of requests. That way, everybody wins.

I even say it's hard as a comic because people only want to hear the hits. I'll either get people that say, "Why didn't you do that one joke?" or someone will say, "You don't have any new material."

Q. So you're all right doing old jokes?

A. I'm very comfortable doing old material. A lot of comics don't like going back to the well, but those jokes paid for my house.

One thing that most people don't know is I don't write anything down. I've never written any of my material down. None of it's on paper. It's all from memory and all from recording the shows. I've never written anything down.

Q. How do you practice then?

A. I'm very unstructured like that. I've tried to use notes before for preparing for something like "The Tonight Show." You've got exactly four minutes and 30 seconds, and I'm the king of long setups, so it's hard for me.

But I'll take an experience that happened to me up on stage. I'm really good at embellishing a story. What I say is, "I just put a little magic on it." I give it its own little life.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1557, kevin.coffey@owh.com

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