Brian Regan and Jim Gaffigan: Clean Comedy, Huge Audiences

There is a common belief that the biggest comedians have to be shocking. Brian Regan and Jim Gaffigan prove otherwise. Both work clean, without profanity or shock material, and both have built careers playing theaters and arenas, releasing major specials, and earning the respect of their peers.

Their success is the best argument for the case made in the Clean Comedy article on this site. Clean material can be told to anyone, retold by anyone and performed anywhere. When it is also genuinely well built, it can reach an enormous audience.

Brian Regan's material comes from the most ordinary parts of life, like shipping a package or getting an eye exam, and the small everyday moments where things do not go as planned. He appeared on David Letterman's late-night show 28 times between 1995 and 2015, and his 2015 special from Radio City Music Hall was the first live stand-up special on Comedy Central. He has since released specials on Netflix.

Regan is also a physical performer. His face and body act out the confusion, embarrassment and small humiliations of his characters, often more than the words do. Jerry Seinfeld, who knows a thing or two about everyday comedy, has called Regan one of his favorite stand-ups.

Regan usually plays a man who is slightly out of his depth and trying to hide it. Everyone recognizes that feeling. He then exaggerates it into something physical and absurd, so the audience laughs at a big version of a small feeling they have all had.

This is observational comedy with a twist. Instead of only noticing what is odd about the world, Regan notices what is odd about himself in the world. It is self-deprecating, warm and universal, the same qualities that made Rodney Dangerfield's persona work, delivered in a gentler style.

Jim Gaffigan, born in Illinois in 1966, is famous for material about food, laziness and family life, including a well-known bit about Hot Pockets from his 2006 special Beyond the Pale. The Wall Street Journal once called him the King of Clean. He has filled Madison Square Garden and, in 2015, performed at a festival attended by Pope Francis.

His signature device is the inner voice: a high-pitched aside, delivered as if it were a disapproving audience member's thoughts about him. He tells a joke, then switches into the voice to comment on how the joke is going or what the audience must think of him. It is a joke about the joke, and it gives his act a second layer.

The inner voice lets Gaffigan say what the audience might be thinking before they think it. If a line is strange, the voice points it out. If he admits to eating something ridiculous, the voice is appalled. The audience laughs at the original joke and then again at the commentary, which means he often gets two laughs from one setup.

It also makes him likable. By voicing the judgment himself, he disarms it. He is already in on the joke about himself, so the audience relaxes and laughs with him. It is the same generosity Jack Benny showed by letting his cast mock him, translated into a one-man act.

Both comedians show that clean does not mean bland. Regan's material is precise and physical; Gaffigan's is layered and self-aware. What they avoid is shock, not edge. They find the comedy in specific, honest observations about everyday life, and they make themselves the target.

If you want to write clean material, start where they do. Pick an ordinary experience, find the moment where you felt foolish or confused, and exaggerate that moment. Then add a second layer, such as a reaction, an inner voice or a callback. The dad jokes and office jokes on this site are good raw material to practice on.