'Toon Up

Growing up, comedian Greg Morton was a huge fan of cartoons -- particularly Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and other woodland critters. Their smart-ass high jinks laid the foundation for Morton’s stand-up act. “Those cartoons were so good,” he says. “They didn’t talk down to kids. [The writers] basically wrote jokes for themselves.”

Morton started his professional career as an animator. But he soon found out that drawing cartoons all day didn’t pay much. So he switched jobs and became a stand-up comic -- an idea that was planted in him by one of his college professors years before. Morton spent some time onstage when he was a student, telling jokes inspired by legends like Richard Pryor. These days, Morton’s act includes riffs on everything from Star Wars to violence in schools. “How could you not know your kid is into Hitler?” he says. “If your kid starts goose-stepping around the house, that’s a clue. ‘What are you doing, son?’ ‘Oh, I’m just trying on these new boots, Dad.’”
Fri., Oct. 5, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., Oct. 6, 8 & 10:15 p.m.; Sun., Oct. 7, 7:30 p.m., 2007