The Lovemaster is Coming to New Brunswick

Comedians don’t usually schedule interviews at 9 a.m. but a few seconds after Craig Shoemaker answers the phone, the reason for the morning interview becomes clear.

Shoemaker is getting ready for a day at a water park with his sons and early in the interview he tells one of them to get ready. When the boy says he is ready, Shoemaker replies, “Get more ready.”

Observations about family life provide plenty of material for Shoemaker, who will perform at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick on July 28 through 30, but fans will also be treated to his famous Lovemaster character.

The Lovemaster riffs off confident but decidedly unappealing pickup lines to prospective ladies such as “I’ll love you so good, your neighbor will have a smoke” and “One night with me, you’ll be sweating like Sarah Palin taking a history test.”

“I was a geek in high school,” Shoemaker says of the Lovemaster’s origins. “I was 5-foot-1 and the girls would all use the f-word with me — friend.”

So big a geek was young Craig that he says girls brought him to the bathroom with them to ask his help in getting them together with the boys they liked.

“And I’d sit there in my high voice going, ‘I’ll fix you up’ and telling them I’m going to help them out meeting these guys,” he says. “In the meantime, way deep down, I’m going, ‘Give the geek a chance, you have no idea how good I’d be.’ The Lovemaster is a Lothario bad guy, that’s my answer to them.”

The Lovemaster is so popular that back in his single days, women would ask him to be the Lovemaster. “They had no interest in me,” he says. “It happened quite often, they would tell me to shut up and bring the Lovemaster back.”

When an interviewer says that must have been weird, Shoemaker replies, “Of course it was weird, but I complied.”

The Lovemaster even led to a 1998 movie that featured Farrah Fawcett as the main character’s “dream date.” Shoemaker also wrote and starred in the 2007 comedy, “Totally Baked,” which got its start when one of Shoemaker’s sons asked him if he ever smoked pot.

Another favorite routine he’ll bring to the Stress Factory is “machine gun” in which he talks about how in the days before electronic toys and gadgets, kids used to play by pointing their fingers at each other and making a sound resembling a machine gun.

“That all started because my friends, we used to play machine guns when we were kids and we would just rip on each other,” Shoemaker says. “That’s how comedy started for me, it’s just a rip session.”

When doing the machine gun bit, Shoemaker asks audience members to make their own machine gun sounds. “Everybody has a different one and I’ve heard hundreds of different sounds, that’s the one bit that makes me laugh,” he says.

And he says it always works.

“I’m laughing, the audience is laughing, the only people who aren’t laughing are the guys in the front row where you see the fear in their faces,” he says. “It looks like they’re in a real war. ‘You’re in a comedy club and miming a gun, and you have that kind fear in your face?’”

Another hallmark of Shoemaker’s act is his uncanny impression of Barney Fife, iconic character from “The Andy Griffith Show” played by Don Knotts. Shoemaker’s impression of Knotts is so good that he actually looped some of the actors’ lines for the 1998 movie “Pleasantville.”

“He was sick so I went in and did about 10 of the lines,” Shoemaker says. “I’ve never heard anybody who could tell the difference. I channel that guy. As a matter of fact when he saw me one time, he looks up to me, he was doing an autograph show and he says, ‘It’s you again, can you do my signature too?’”

Being a standup comedian has led to other friendships, including with members of the rock group AC/DC and actor Samuel Jackson, with whom he’s played golf.

“It’s a riot because you’re going, ‘Really, you want to play with me?’” Shoemaker says. “I feel like the kid that gets invited to the cool party. But I still don’t feel cool, I feel like they’re inviting me because I have a nice car and they need a ride.”

Mr. Shoemaker is making a return to the Stress Factory for his gigs this weekend. He says the last time was “amazing” but that there was one slight problem.

“It was during an Eagles-Giant game, like a Sunday night game, so not only was I competing against that, but I didn’t want to admit that I was a Philadelphia fan,” he says. “It was more of a Giants crowd so I was tentative but they were surprisingly very accepting of me.”

And what would happen if a comic told a Philly crowd that he’s a Giant fan?

“It would not be the best idea.”

Craig Shoemaker will perform at the Stress Factory, 90 Church St. in New Brunswick, at 8 p.m. July 28 and  8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. July 29 and 30. Tickets cost $25. For information, call 732-545-4242 or go to www.stressfactory.com.