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DeGeneres is the older brother of Ellen DeGeneres, as famed for her five-year stint on her eponymous sitcom as she is for her relationship with actress Anne Heche.
And to answer the second question that inexplicably follows, no, Vance DeGeneres is not gay.
OK? Now just let DeGeneres talk about the news broadcasting dream job he holds as a correspondent on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, making its Canadian debut on the Comedy Network this month.
Whether he's interviewing traffic officials about cars that seem to vanish into a Bermuda Triangle-like area near Washington, D.C., or discovering how a Saskatchewan farmer predicts the weather using a pig's internal organs, DeGeneres's assignments make the Elvis-and-Nessie-obsessed supermarket tabloid The Weekly World News look like Time.
"I've been in TV for a number of years now, mainly as a writer, and this is just the greatest," DeGeneres says on the blower from New York.
"I can't imagine any other job where you get to travel somewhere and shoot a story the way you want to."
Comedy Central's The Daily Show is a daily (go figure) half-hour melange of the latest headlines, done in a mock newscast style similar to Not Necessarily the News or the Weekend Update bits on Saturday Night Live.
Hosted by red-hot funnyman Stewart, who took over the anchor desk when Craig Kilborn left in January, the show also features reports by a team of field correspondents on a variety of oddball - but real - stories.
"A story that's good for us is a news story, but it's got to be just a little offbeat," says DeGeneres. "Hopefully, more than a little offbeat."
For his very first report, DeGeneres had to fly to Regina. "Then we drove for three or four hours out into the middle of nowhere, to this tiny little town, and did a story about a guy who's in the Farmer's Almanac," he says.
"He's 60 years old and he forecasts the weather by fondling pig spleens."
The hilarity of the field reports comes from the correspondents' absolutely deadpan delivery. They conduct their interviews in the same way any TV news reporter does, except that their subjects tend to be midget wrestlers, alien abductees and the like.
"It would be very easy to make fun of a lot of the people. I try to let the humour come out of just telling the story."
DeGeneres comes about his comic roots honestly, having made his first foray into TV in 1976 as one of the creators of Mr. Bill, the hapless clay figure who met with a horrible demise week after week on Saturday Night Live. (DeGeneres was the original Mr. Hands.)
The former marine, deejay and sportscaster auditioned for the job as host of The Daily Show when it went on the air in 1996. He was passed over in favour of Kilborn, but offered one of the correspondent jobs instead.
He turned it down, later opting to write for his sister's sitcom, Ellen, during what turned out to be its most tumultuous season - when Ellen, the character, and Ellen, the actress, both came out.
"It really was difficult, to be perfectly honest. It was a real, real tough time. It would have been easier being a writer on the show any of the first three seasons.
"But the fourth season we had a lot of pressure from the network, the studio and the press, once it (Ellen's coming out) was leaked to the press.
"It was rough all the way around and it put a little strain on my relationship with Ellen, but we've since patched it up and we have a great relationship."
DeGeneres left his sister's show in its fifth season to write for a short-lived UPN comedy, Hitz. When that tanked, the longtime musician (his band, the Cold, had a small but devoted following in the '80s) took some time off to tour with the opening act for Canadian rockers Barenaked Ladies, during a leg of their U.S. tour last fall.
When Kilborn left The Daily Show for his own late-night talk show on CBS, two of the correspondents went with him. The Daily Show's producer contacted DeGeneres and offered him - for the second time - one of the jobs. He's now signed on for at least one more year.
Interestingly, DeGeneres says he's thrilled The Daily Show will soon be seen north of the border (beginning Sept. 13) on the Comedy Network. "I'm a big fan of SCTV and Kids In the Hall. It's exciting to be on where a lot of the great comic talent came from."