Viewers of Entertainment Tonight last night got to see the standup comedy return of faux "millionaire" Rick Rockwell. But they didn't get the full story.
The bits -- taped at L.A.'s Comedy Store and Improv on the weekend -- showed the title character of Fox's ill-fated Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire doing "triumphant" seven-minute spots in front of polite crowds. But the cameras were unplugged before viewers could see other comics getting much bigger laughs at Rockwell's expense.
At the Improv, according to a report from comic Tim O'Rourke on the Internet newsgroup alt.comedy.standup, Rockwell opened with the Leno/Hugh Grant line... 'What was I thinking?,' did several jokes about Darva (Conger, the 'winner' of his hand in marriage) and closed with a long piece about My America. O'Rourke said the crowd reaction "started out as 'Ok, whatever'... and changed to 'This guy's really an ass.' "
Comic Steve Marmel -- a writer for Teletoon's Cow & Chicken and Johnny Bravo -- walked up to the mike following Rockwell's set, wiped it and said, "Let me just clean this off in case stupid is contagious." He then did a full set carving up Rockwell, and elicited, according to O'Rourke, "the loudest, rowdiest responses I've heard at the Improv in a long time."
Both Rockwell and Conger have wilted under scrutiny since the top-rated, morally indefensible marriage contest aired. He was revealed to have had a restraining order against him for threats against a previous girlfriend, and Conger turned out to have lied about serving in the Gulf War.