Bob Nelson (born March 3, 1958), is an American stand-up comedian and actor.

Biography

Bob Nelson specializes in rubber-faced comedy characters, much as Red Skelton did in his heyday. His most popular originals include Jiffy Jeff, a punch drunk prizefighter with a Gym in NYC; Eppy Epperman, a brilliant but nerdy kid with deeper insights than meet the eye; an entire football team of stereotypical characters and unnamed football stars doing a charity commercial; Wilby Stuckerson, a hillbilly chicken farmer based on a life experience of Nelson's from Shreveport, Louisiana, and Mr. Pingyeh, an argumentative Asian man who is more eloquent than the people with whom he argues. He is also known for his Jacques-Yves Cousteau impersonations and his "football act" in which he parodies the old team rundowns in the College Football All-Star games, in which players announce their names, numbers and teams (example: "Quasimodo... Notre Dame... halfback!")

Unlike many stand-up acts, Nelson does not "work blue," letting his characters get laughs with silliness rather than vulgarity. He attributes this to being influenced by Red Skelton. Bob spent time with Red on numerous occasions and considers him his comedy mentor. Red praised Bob for not cursing in his act and explained to him how "Laughter is like medicine; it has a healing effect, and when you put cursing in it, it's like putting poison in the medicine." After a particularly long visit with Red after Red's show at Carnegie Hall one year, Bob and his wife Trish said to Red, "We really should be going now; there are so many people waiting to greet you," Red told Bob and Trish in that world famous lilting speech, "Then they should have gotten here early like you did!"

Bob Nelson was Rodney Dangerfield's opening act for eight years of Mr.Dangerfield's career. Bob was featured in two of Rodney's HBO stand-up comedy showcases, alongside Jerry Seinfeld, Rosanne Barr, Rita Rudner and Bob Saget. That led to two HBO specials starring Bob Nelson, including "Nelson Schmelson". Bob considers Rodney his 'Comedy Godfather'.

Nelson has appeared several times on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and various other talk shows, such as David Letterman, Regis Philbin, and Merv Griffin. Johnny Carson said after one of Bob's visits and performances, "You won't laugh any harder than that in six minutes."

Bob had performed and shared at “Come Thirsty”, a series of church seminars by Max Lucado and Michael W. Smith. Bob was featured on 'Life Today' with James & Betty Robinson. He is also currently being seen regularly on “Bananas Comedy”, which is a very popular family-friendly television comedy show that airs throughout the US and Canada.

In 2008 Nelson took his family and his show to Branson, Missouri to take a break from the road, where he performed locally for three years.

Bob won an Emmy Award in Philadelphia for a children’s show he wrote and starred in. He also had supporting roles in Nora Ephron's directorial film debut This is My Life with Julie Kavner and Ivan Reitman's Kindergarten Cop with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Bob also starred in the Zucker Brothers' (Airplane!, The Naked Gun) Brain Donors, and the 1992 update of the Marx Brothers' comedy A Night at the Opera. In the latter film, Nelson plays what would have been the Harpo Marx part.

A bit of trivia: Nelson was in a comedy group called "The Identical Triplets" with Eddie Murphy and Rob Bartlett.